BXP gives Mass Mobility Hub space to develop transportation tech at CityPoint
For many transportation tech startups, the “lab” doesn’t mean benches and burners so much as outdoor areas to set up charging stations or driveways to test out vehicles. Office landlord BXP is hoping to provide exactly what those startups are looking for, by launching a new research and incubating center for transportation technology at its CityPoint development in Waltham.
On Wednesday, BXP announced it would use sections of its office park overlooking Route 128 in a five-year partnership with the Mass Mobility Hub, a recently formed company that aims to foster local transportation tech startups. At this point, neither partner is saying how much space they’ll use for the project, other than to say it will take up a mixture of indoor and outdoor locations around CityPoint’s seven buildings. The partnership’s financial terms were also not disclosed.
The Mass Mobility Hub opened its first location at a CIC coworking space in Cambridge earlier this year with Jamey Tesler, a former transportation official in the Baker administration, as its executive director. Tesler said the Mobility Hub also needed space to actually move vehicles around, to help support some of its members’ testing needs. BXP executives, meanwhile, are eager to help launch a new cluster of innovative companies, like what the company did with the biotech boom in Cambridge’s Kendall Square where it owns several office and lab buildings.
The Mass Mobility Hub — which envisions taking on a similar role to what MassRobotics does in the state’s robotics industry, or LabCentral for biotech firms — has been in the works for several years, with the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership, a group of high-powered chief executives, partnering with Zipcar and others to provide networking, mentoring, and support for startups. While the focus has been on Boston-area startups, the hub’s founders hope to eventually reach all corners of the state. The BXP partnership represents a logical next step, by giving startups like car-battery firm SparkCharge or electric bike startup CargoB some room to roam.
BXP executive Bryan Koop said many startups are now looking for more flexible space than simply a desk in a coworking office, including places with warehouses, loading bays, and hardware labs.
“The uses that we’re seeing from our clients that are coming in, it’s not as standardized as it used to be,” Koop said. “We’re having to figure out how we’re going to respond to that in this new economy. … We really thought, let’s experiment like we did at Kendall Square.”
Koop is also hopeful that some of the technologies being developed by these transportation startups can eventually evolve for use in the building sector, particularly with regard to batteries and materials.
The pandemic delayed the launch of the Mass Mobility Hub, but now it’s gaining momentum just as the Healey administration closes in on an economic development bill that could set aside tens of millions of dollars each year for climate-tech startups. That’s expected to be passed by the Legislature this fall, while the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center recently began an effort to identify the sector’s local testing and research needs.
“This opportunity is being pursued elsewhere in the country,” Tesler said. “What we wanted to do is provide a Massachusetts model for that and a place to do that.”
Jon Chesto can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @jonchesto.
link
