ONE OF THE COUNTRY’S LARGEST CLEAN ENERGY AND TECH INCUBATORS TO CALL SOMERVILLE HOME

SOMERVILLE – An innovative idea incubator

at the forefront of the next-generation industries of clean energy and

clean tech is moving from Boston’s innovation district to the Innovation

City: Somerville.

Greentown

Labs will bring 24 start-up companies that call it home to 28 Dane St.,

along with 92 jobs and plans for expanding to over 140 jobs in the next

five years inside 33,000 square feet of space, a substantial increase

from their current space in Boston’s innovation district.

Gov.

Deval Patrick will join Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone, Secretary of Energy

and Environmental Affairs Richard K. Sullivan, Jr. and Secretary of

Housing and Economic Development Greg Bialecki on Thursday, July 18 on a

tour of Somerville to meet local entrepreneurs, ending with a joint

press event at noon at 28 Dane St. about Somerville’s rise as the

Innovation City and welcoming Greentown Labs to its new home.

The

City of Somerville facilitated Greentown Labs’ move in part through a working capital loan that utilizes Community Development Block

Grant Funds, part of a new initiative by the City to support innovative

business activities and new employment opportunities. The loan contains

requirements for new job creation and that not less than 51 percent of

new job hires go to those who meet moderate- and low-income standards.

Greentown Labs also agrees to use it best efforts to hire Somerville

residents in all available job opportunities.

“People

are figuring out that this isn’t the innovation district or the

innovation center—Somerville is the Innovation City. We are a city that

prides itself on innovation, creativity and originality,” Mayor Joseph

A. Curtatone said. “We have made it a priority as part of our

comprehensive 20-year SomerVision plan to attract and bring in companies

like Greentown Labs. This move is a result of our own Future Economies

Commission, launched to ensure that Somerville is at the forefront of

the next generation of economic opportunities.

“We

are providing the vision, planning, zoning, infrastructure improvements

and business and economic development policy to attract these types of

21st century industries,” Mayor Curtatone continued.

“Greentown Labs coming here to Somerville is an endorsement of all those

efforts and a testament to the economic strength of this community.”

The

Commonwealth of Massachusetts is also contributing to Greentown’s

expansion into Somerville through a $300,000 grant, provided by the

Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, a division of the Commonwealth’s

Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. In addition,

Rockland Trust Company is also supporting the expansion of Greentown

Labs by providing construction financing.

Greentown

Labs’ mission since its inception in 2011 is to provide low-cost

prototyping space to clean energy and clean tech start-ups. Those firms

range from those in the very early conceptual stage of product

development and prior to receiving venture capital to those that are

already receiving venture capital support and are now moving into the

more advanced stages of product development.

“The

types of jobs we envision for the future are the exact type of jobs

that Greentown Labs offers,” Mayor Curtatone said. “Those job

opportunities, in the type of industries that will fuel part of

Somerville’s renaissance and we will attract here, are industries like

Greentown Labs and what they offer.”

Greentown

Labs is settling in a burgeoning area already home to several

innovative companies that fuel Somerville’s industrial renaissance. The

facility at 28 Dane St. that Greentown Labs will call home formerly

housed the Ames Envelope facility, a legacy industry for almost a

century in Somerville, until 2010 when Ames sold their operations to a

Wisconsin-based firm resulting in the loss of nearly 150 jobs.

Since

then, what has organically grown in the area is a campus of small

start-up industries and enclaves, including the shared spaces of

Artisan’s Asylum, Inc. and Fringe, along with creative start-up

manufacturers like Cuppow and Recovery Green Roofs. It’s not only

happening in this area of Somerville—the City recently welcomed

e-commerce innovator The Grommet to Davis Square. Somerville not only

provides the space needed for these industries to flourish, but the

active, walkable, bikeable and transit-oriented neighborhoods that

attract workers in those industries who want to live near where they

work.

“A building of yesterday will now be housing the ideas of

tomorrow with Greentown Labs’ arrival in Somerville,” Ward 2 Alderman Maryann

Heuston said. “These kind of innovative and cutting-edge industries are part of

the ongoing revitalization of Ward 2 and Union Square. I am proud of the work

already done by the Board of Alderman and the City in cultivating a healthy,

business friendly environment where these 21^st century jobs can take

root and grow in our community, and I am fully committed to Somerville striving

to do even more to become an incubator itself for next-generation industries.

Combined with infrastructure improvements in Union Square, Ward 2’s reputation

as a center for visionary commerce continues to flourish.”

“These

organizations and companies recognize how a concentrated universe of

thought, intelligence, skill and value working together can create the

industries of the future and economic opportunity for Somerville and the

region,” Mayor Curtatone said. “What was created through one industrial

revolution and faded away to another economic transformation has

spurred another new tech revolution here in Somerville. Both current

industries thinking about expansion and start-ups looking for a place

where their concepts can thrive are looking to Somerville because it’s a

city that supports originality, creativity and innovation. We’re going

out and getting those companies. We’re bringing them here.”