Along with 100 affordable homes in a pair of buildings, there could be a park, community room and retail center to replace two underused parking lots near Porter Square, the nonprofit developer Just A Start told residents in a Tuesday meeting.
The proposals for 1826 and 1840 Massachusetts Ave., which would likely not start construction until 2028 and not open until 2030, would rise a dozen stories on the lot closer to Porter Square, with an estimated 76 homes and retail and parking for 78 bicycles and five cars at the base. On the other side of Mount Vernon Street, a building of a half-dozen stories would include 29 homes with 32 bicycle spaces and a community room opening onto a corner plaza. Over that, farther up the side street, would be a modest, green park – about the size of a doubles tennis court.
Affordable Housing Overlay zoning passed in 2023 allows each lot to get a tower of 15 stories, meaning Just A Start’s proposal with Rode Architects is far from the maximum it could build. The taller building would go next to the Hotel 1868, which opened eight years ago built to around a 60-foot height. The hotel side facing the parking lot has no windows.
Despite not pushing its zoning, the project faced resistance Tuesday on a variety of fronts. In a room full of neighbors, a majority of them older homeowners, there were concerns familiar from projects proposed citywide in the past several years: traffic, parking, construction noise, the potential effect on utilities.
In this case, even a park drew opposition.
“The park – and the park looks to me like a parklet, seems like a good word – seems likely to end up as a hangout for teenagers, or other people sort of just hanging out on the corner somewhere near Porter Square,” one neighbor said. (Speakers were not asked to identify themselves.) “I don’t think you’re going to quite get the sort of tranquil oasis that you imagine.”
More residents scoffed at the idea the park would be maintained adequately. Another said the idea should be traded in for vehicle parking.
Soon after acquiring the parking lots from Lesley University in November 2024, developers mentioned the potential for some underground parking – an idea that didn’t make it into Tuesday’s presentation. “I don’t think anyone here cares about a little tiny park,” one resident said. “People are going to want to care about safety, about being able to move their vehicles.” The retail space too was deemed as sure to struggle, likely joining the many empty storefronts along the avenue, and one resident said it too should instead be parking.
The overall project had strong defenders, many of them younger and eager for the chance to stay in Cambridge even without being rich. “Preschool teachers don’t have a lot of upward mobility, but we need them,” said a preschool teacher who hoped to stay in Cambridge to raise a family.
The park idea also had defenders in the audience, including one who imagined bringing food from Porter Square for open-air lunches. The retail drew a suggestion that it would work best if it leased at below market-rate costs.
The discussion led by Just A Start senior project manager Madeline Lee and Ben Wan, a principal at Rode, noted that there’s no significant shaded or green public space within a quarter-mile or 10-minute walk. The Knights Garden, a bushy, 1915 courtyard around St. James’s Episcopal Church on the other side of Porter, shrank to a lawn with construction of the St. James Place condos in 2021.
The park idea emerged from an October meeting with the Porter Square Neighbors Association and Baldwin Neighborhood Council, where Wan said attendees had a message about “trees, trees, trees – the tree canopy, making sure that we’re maintaining shade and maintaining our cool score as we can,” as trees and greenery help counteract the growing heat of climate change. Lee said a curb bump-out into Mount Vernon Street had been mentioned in preliminary talks with the city as a way to make the greenery slightly bigger.
There’s also a design rationale for the park, the development team said: “We want to make sure to carry some of the language and the scale and the leafiness and the greenness of Mount Vernon down into our parcel,” Wan said.
Parking and new neighbors
Yet vehicle access for the pair of buildings is on the side street instead of Massachusetts Avenue, some audience members noted with dismay. “How do you see the loading zones working there, as far as all the traffic that’s going to be generated by trucks and deliveries and visitors and all the people that you have to come into the building?”
Still others foresaw a future of homes filled with drivers who not only needed to navigate the area, but had no parking of their own and would have to go looking for it on Massachusetts Avenue or Mount Vernon. “Say only 80 units have cars – but also Cambridge residency allows four parking permits per unit, so you’re so you’re going to be adding at least 100 cars circling the streets, looking for someplace to park. What do you do to abate that?” one resident asked.
There was more to study there, Lee agreed, though another Just A Start staffer said preliminary figures show only around one-quarter of tenants have cars at a similar project of the developer.
Other audiences members asked if residents at a development so close to transit could be denied the ability to request parking permits. That’s one of three ideas being considered by city staff as ways to address car ownership in a city of rising population, according to a June 17 memo reviewed by the City Council. The ideas were sent to committee for study.
The height of the 1826 and 1840 Massachusetts Ave. buildings and the goal of 100 new homes for families – with current Cambridge residents getting preference for placement, Just A Start noted – drew the attention of several attendees, who complained of the “burden” they would place on current residents. “You’re going to reduce the value of my property, no question about it,” one resident said.
The suggestion was made to put studios for “young professionals” into the taller building instead of family units to get the same number of apartments without as much height, since the number of homes was part of the math of getting the project funded – despite more affordable family-sized units being a long-standing goal of city officials, and at the request of residents citywide over many years.
Height on corridors
Whatever the mix, “you’re trying to do a lot of units on what really isn’t that much space, and especially on what is essentially a small side street,” another said. This kind of concern has been heard before, particularly at an all-affordable tower proposed for 2072 Massachusetts Ave. That project extends back onto Walden Street, where some neighbors saw the originally proposed nine stories as too high; under Affordable Housing Overlay zoning, the project is back for launch as soon as this year at 12 stories, but the structure steps back to be lower on Walden.
Councillor Cathie Zusy, who was at the meeting, reminded residents of a principle from the Envision Cambridge master plan from 2019. “I’ve been encouraging development along the corridors, and I feel like Mass. Ave. is our major artery and is where development should occur,” Zusy said. “I voted against [citywide] Multifamily Housing Zoning because I don’t want our neighborhoods disrupted, but we do need to allow for some development along the arteries – and I trust that Just A Start will be sensitive to the community.”
“You’re lucky that they purchased these parcels. Just A Start does extraordinary work. I think they’re probably one of our best affordable housing developers,” Zusy said. “They’re very thoughtful, and they do take residents’ comments into consideration.”
The next project meeting is expected to be in August, with a greater emphasis on design, Lee said.
This post was updated July 2, 2026, to add brief discussion of proposed retail spaces.
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