Developers at the Harriet Jacobs House in Harvard Square nearly walked away Thursday from a hotel-and-homes project that won over its neighbors – so exasperated by questioning at the Cambridge Board of Zoning Appeal that they’d revert to a residential-only project that the same neighbors had been desperate to stop.
Instead, 17 Story LLC and lawyer Patrick Barrett were pulled back by pleas from board members that they were only seeking clarity from a legal opinion. “We have to do our due diligence,” chair Steven Ng said.
“Okay, mister chair, you win,” Barrett said, agreeing to return Oct. 16.
In the residential-only version of the project at Mount Auburn and Story streets, 17 Story LLC needs no special permissions to build a building of condominiums 85 feet high and only 5 feet from neighbors unhappy over the loss of privacy and sunlight. The developers were before the board to try to move the project farther from neighbors – nearly 14 feet – by pushing it to the sidewalk. That goes against zoning that advocates for a 5-foot setback, but nearby buildings such as the square’s post office building don’t have setbacks either.
With a variance from the board, the project would have a three-floor, 65-guest-room hotel at the base, topped by five floors holding 60 condominiums. Some homes would be deeded as affordable.
At the front would be a slightly reoriented Harriet Jacobs House, named after the author who escaped slavery and ran a boarding house for Harvard students and faculty in the 1800s. The run-down structure would be refurbished and become a hotel lobby with a few guest rooms overhead, a Jacobs museum and a cafe. A three-story building on the same lot would be torn down to make room.
Though the project has been working its way through processes since August 2025, winning approvals from the Historical Commission and Harvard Square Advisory Council and letters of support from the Harvard Square Business Association, Harriet Jacobs Legacy Committee and now neighbors (and one in opposition from the Harvard Square Neighborhood Association), the solution before the board was new. “Up until the middle of July, I had no real solution for this,” Barrett said. “I do apologize that this project is in flux, but there’s no other legal mechanism to address the setback.”
Zoning and opinions
The project is also due before the Planning Board in the near future review for an advisory consultation and nonbinding comments on building design.
There were different ways to look at zoning in the area that affects allowed height and setbacks, including a Harvard Square Overlay District and a law passed last year to encourage multifamily buildings. The situation was simple from Barrett’s perspective: The project uses an allowed commercial height for the hotel and goes up to the allowed residential height for the condos. The version he proposed Thursday was about offering neighbors relief from having a tall building nearly at their property line and about moving the project away from mature, deeply rooted trees.
It was less simple for some board members. “We’ll have to agree to disagree pending input from the city solicitor,” board member Wendy Leiserson told Barrett. “We now have the benefit of having three submissions from different well-known attorneys in the local area about how to construe the new variant standard, and they’re not all the same … Your argument about how to interpret the new standard differs.” In addition, the in-flux nature of the plans brought a warning from Ng early in the meeting: “You’re showing quite a few different configurations here. I’m very confused, and I’m not going to approve anything without knowing we’ve got something locked in.”
Support from neighbors
During public comment, neighbors from among the five abutting properties supported the developers and a solution, praising the building of homes, benefits for the deteriorating Harriet Jacobs House and relief from a “nightmare” of nearness. Several noted that building the project right to the sidewalk only made it match the nearest structures on Mount Auburn and Story streets.
“It would seem then completely in keeping with the rest of the street to have this building closer that way, and obviously offer a lot of great relief on the backside as well as green space and preservation of these trees,” said a Hilliard Street parent, Nicole Bryant. “It would be wonderful to have this public space with the hotel and the cafe that is planned – and, selfishly, at 7:15 in the morning, I would love to have a latte as I’m out there waiting for the yellow school bus.”
Barrett and his client, though, said they were ready to move on. “The best course of action for my client is not to continue,” Barrett said. “We’ll withdraw and just continue on with the by-right residential project.”
Understandable frustration
The members pushing for advice from the city’s Law Department stressed that they were merely looking for clarity in the calculations of dimensional standards where the city seemed to lack. Both sides said they had consulted Inspectional Services staff, coming away with different levels of certainty about the project.
Some frustration was understandable, Leiserson said.
“Here’s the thing,” Leiserson said. “I would love to please the neighbors. I would love to not continue this case, and I’m feeling, frankly, a little bullied by the fact that you’re saying ‘We’re going to withdraw it.’”
Barrett relented, saying he wasn’t trying to be a bully, and the board voted to continue the matter. Then he and the board turned to their next shared case – another corner lot in another section of town, with another, as Barrett put it, “winding history.”
