While an all-affordable apartment building proposed for North Cambridge was greeted warmly by Planning Board members on Tuesday, there’s a potential problem with its parking plan, and members of the public are worried about the multiyear absence of the area’s nearest grocery store and restaurant.
The proposed 10-story building at 350 Rindge Ave. would create 92 affordable homes with a roof deck, community room, fitness room, 100 long-term and 24 short-term bicycle parking spaces and 17 off-street parking spaces. The developer, Boston Communities, also expects to have five on-street parking spaces, two reserved for uses such as loading, pickup and drop-off.
The spaces have been carved out of a lot that also fits in ground-floor retail – the Ferro’s Foodtown grocery store and its attached Krispy Krunchy Chicken fast-food restaurant – as well as a surprise demand from Eversource for “not only a transformer, but a substation to help support the electrification needs of the community at large,” said presenter Laura Homich, of the architecture and planning firm Prellwitz Chilinski Associates.
“I hate to say it, a lot of times buildings are designed with great influence of parking, and this first floor definitely has that,” Homich said. “It’s a driver, that and the retail, where we’re trying to get enough footprint on the ground floor.”
As a project built under Affordable Housing Overlay zoning, 350 Rindge needs only advisory consultation sessions with the board; it is subject to two because it exceeds 15,000 square feet. (The total expected gross floor area is 128,867 square feet.) The site needs a special permit because, while zoning allows a grocery store of up to 2,500 square feet, Ferro’s and Krispy Krunchy are proposed for up to twice that within the footprint of the building.
The parking problem was raised by member H Theodore Cohen, who noted that zoning requirements in the district say front yards may be landscaped or hardscaped but cannot be used for off-street parking. “It seems to me you’re using it for off-street parking,” Cohen said.
As a driver of Rindge Avenue almost daily, Cohen identified the location of the proposed on-street parking as a bottleneck where cars would come into conflict with the 83 bus route. “It’s a narrow street right now. Putting parking right there, I think, is inherently dangerous,” he said. “I am not convinced by the transportation department belief that the proposal to set the curb on Rindge Avenue back to accommodate the off-street parking spaces appears feasible.”
No department staff member or inspector was present to address Cohen’s questions, including whether Rindge was expected to get bike lanes. “If there is any plan in the future to put bike lanes on Rindge Avenue, because it’s already a narrow street,” he said, “I cannot imagine that there would be any room for the off-street parking.”
Looking for parking
With 17 proposed parking spaces for 92 apartments, Boston Communities expected to offer their use by lottery at the initial move-in, then on a first-come, first-served basis as spaces are freed up, said Matt Robayna, a principal at the firm. Most public reaction to the plan has expressed concern that having so few spaces will make parking impossible in the area, despite the site being on a bus line and 0.3 miles from the Alewife Station on the MBTA’s red line.
“Parking has really been a hot-button issue for our neighbors,” Robayna said.
Board vice chair Mary Flynn had a solution for Cohen’s on-street parking problem that the developer might wince to hear: “Any thought that maybe those spaces could be incorporated into the 17?” Flynn asked.
“It’s certainly something that we can explore,” Robayna said.
Boston Communities has looked into securing offsite parking at lots across Alewife Brook Parkway, but didn’t report successful negotiations. Planning Board member Mary Lydecker suggested that the city should play a bigger role. “There are so many parking lots that are underutilized right now,” Lydecker said. “I don’t really think it’s necessarily the applicant’s responsibility to solve it onsite. As much as you guys are trying to accommodate parking onsite and trying to meet the needs of the community … to me it’s speaking to a broader issue.”
The hearing was continued to a future date to address Cohen’s parking question and some design suggestions.
Ferro’s Foodtown and Krispy Krunchy
The developer has an agreement with the owners of the Ferro’s land to buy it when permitting approvals and financial backing are in place. Though ground might not be broken until 2029, Robayna said, the developer has presented a construction timeline of June 2028 to July 2030, after which the commercial space would be leased back to Ferro’s. (If Foodtown didn’t return, the retail space could be carved into smaller shops, but another retail use that wanted to take the same footprint might need to come back to the Planning Board, staff said.)
The handful of public speakers, as well as some board members, spoke with appreciation for Ferro’s and its planned return – and with concern for how the community’s food needs will be served for what Robayna estimated would be 24 months of construction.
Harvard sociology student Gavin Smith said he’d heard about the impact of Foodtown on residents’ upbringing and sense of community and was “excited to hear that this proposal is considering that and prioritizing that, and ultimately think it will give existing residents of the neighborhood an important sense of continuity.” The gap in service was concerning, and Smith asked about “plans for continuity as construction moves forward, how we can mitigate that loss if Foodtown has to take a long break from providing for North Cambridge and its residents.”
Finding another space
Boston Communities knows Ferro’s “is an important asset to the neighborhood,” Robayna said, but there are few locations around where it might relocate. “If folks have any creative ideas, we’re certainly open to them.”
In early August, The Independent asked about the most obvious temporary space: the former Bertucci’s across Alewife Brook Parkway at 5 Cambridgepark Drive, part of Alewife Station. The restaurant closed there in 2020, leaving 6,400 square feet empty. While the state is interested in redeveloping the Alewife Station property and the surrounded area, it would be unlikely for any project to get underway within the next few years; by hosting Ferro’s and Krispy Krunchy, the MBTA would reap two years’ worth of lease, while the businesses would add a customer base of commuters to its regular Rindge Avenue shoppers.
The possibility wasn’t raised Tuesday. The developer is talking with the owner of Ferro’s about whether using the Bertucci’s space during construction will work for them, said Phil Cohen, another principal at Boston Communities.
After publication, Greystone, the company that leases MBTA property, said the space is not available for lease. “The MBTA is currently keeping it vacant, so we are not able to move forward with a leasing opportunity at this location,” the representative said.
This post was updated Nov. 13, 2026, with comment from the Greystone Real Estate Advisory Group.
