Harvard Pro., Skewers to Close, $6 Million Building to Be Developed on Site

Two of Harvard Square's most beloved small businesses will soon be forced to relocate, according to officials from Harvard Planning and Real Estate (HPRE).

According to Scott Levitan, director of University and Commercial Real Estate at HPRE, the Harvard Provision Company and Skewers Restaurant will be vacating their Mt. Auburn Street location by the beginning of next year.

In their place is planned a $6 million new building half the size of University Hall, taking up both this lot and the one next door. The new building will eventually hold both retail space and University offices.

According to Levitan, both stores' leases will expire on January 15, 2000 and both will need to move out by that time.

The University Typewriter Company, a former tenant of the neighboring building, has already moved to a new location on JFK Street. It will not be replaced by new tenants until a new building is built on the site, he said.

Both buildings have been declared

historic landmarks, which will complicate the University's plan to raze them. Levitan says he hopes the new building's design will fit in well enough with the surrounding neighborhood to win an exemption.

The University's current space crunch, especially in Cambridge, and site's convenient location now make the site especially attractive for new development.

"There are a couple of reasons why now is an appropriate time to think about redeveloping that site," Levitan said. "Those buildings are really tired. They have outmoded systems and they either need some renovation or to come down."

As the University quickly approaches the completion of a successful $2.1 billion Capital Campaign, the new programs that have resulted are fueling the need for more space.

In recent years thousands of square feet and millions of dollars in new buildings have been planned and built as offshoots of the Campaign, the Maxwell-Dworkin computer science building and the Naito Chemistry Laboratory among them.

While Levitan said the tenants' leases were terminated, he said, "No one was surprised by our action at all. We've had cordial relations with our tenants [and there was] always an understanding that their tenancy was temporary at least for the past five years."

Skewers employees said yesterday that they had expected the move..

"We already knew they were going to do something, but we didn't know they would do it this quickly," said Ranbir Sangh.

While Sangh said Skewers is "absolutely" looking at other Square locations, he acknowledged they will miss the Mt. Auburn site.

"We've been doing very good here. We are concerned [about moving], and if we could, we would stay here," he said.

Of the "Pro," Levitan said their proximity to student dorms was a concern for the University, but that it did not motivate the current action.

"It's a tough question," he said. "When Harvard bought the building the Pro was already there. Given that, we didn't ever take any action to extricate them from our property."

Indeed, HPRE is working with "Pro" owners to find a new home in Harvard Square--possibly in another Harvard-owned building.

Still, Levitan acknowledged that a liquor store makes a less-than-ideal University tenant.

"I don't think we would actively seek out a new tenant that was a liquor store if they didn't already have some history in our property," he says.

"It would be way down on our list of priorities to seek out a liquor store in one of our spaces, [there are] other uses that we would look more favorably on," he adds.

The new building will be around 23,000 square feet and cost between $5 and $6 million to construct.

According to zoning requirements the site can accommodate up to 5 stories, which could make its height similar to that of The Garage complex across the street.

HPRE is investigating possible occupants for the retail space planned for on the building's first floor, but declined to reveal potential tenants.

Levitan did say whatever eventually is eventually built on the site will be in keeping with broader trends in University retail space.

Levitan says other University properties have been filled with small businesses looking for a start in the Square, pointing to Toscanini's on Mass. Ave. as one example.

He says this ice-cream-and-coffee store took a prominent location that McDonald's would give "their eye-teeth for."

"We don't have a history of getting the highest revenue tenants. We feel a responsibility to maintain the mom-and-pop character of Harvard Square," Levitan says.

And so he said the first floor of this new Mt. Auburn Street development would likely not be occupied by a big-name retail tenant. The upcoming move-in of retail giant Abercrombie and Fitch into the former site of the Tasty has raised the ire of some Cantabrigians.

"All we know is that we want something consistent with the Square," said Mary H. Power, Harvard's director of community relations for Cambridge.

One additional constraint on the site will be the relatively limited space at the site, only about 3,500 square feet, or roughly the size of Ma Soba, the Pan-Asian noodle eatery located in Holyoke Center.

Despite its small size, Power and Levitan said the site's prominent location is likely to attract the attention of Cambridge business watchers, who monitor the balance of small, local businesses to national chains.

"This site is helpful because it is under-utilized, has marginal buildings and is likely to get a lot of support for [new development]," Power said.

The upper floors of the new structure will contain University office space, although at this point it is unclear whether it will be dedicated to a specific program.

It could house offices displaced by renovation in other parts of campus--possibly University Hall, which will itself undergo extensive renovations over the summer.

"A sixth-month vacation for all University Hall occupants is not, for example, part of my plan!" Knowles wrote in an e-mail message earlier this year.

Levitan said new construction is slated to begin on the Mt. Auburn site in the summer of 2000.

The University is also more tentatively examining the feasibility of putting a parking lot underneath the new building with access from Winthrop Street near Pinocchio's.