When Majic Alphonse was a high school student in Somerville in the early 2000s, the only place he and his friends could go to hang out was outside on the streets or in the park.
They also had nowhere to go for guidance on college applications, mental health support or any of the other resources they needed to plan for their futures.
Today, all of those resources exist in an unexpected location. The new after-school destination is a small building at Somernova, a 7.4-acre technology and innovation campus in Union Square.
Inside is the Dojo, Somerville’s only youth center, where the adult staff work to create programming that provides both entertainment and a pathway to bettering the community.
“When you create these events, it’s not all about partying,” said Alphonse, the youth center’s program director. “Even though we’re giving out gift cards and playing musical chairs and doing all this fun stuff … we do have a main goal of why we want everyone to come together. There’s some type of social change that we’re trying to input.”
The idea for the Dojo, which opened in 2021, came from high school students. The Somernova team started Somerbot, a nonprofit funding youth STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) and education programs, in 2020.
When Collin Yip, managing partner of Rafi Properties, the firm that owns Somernova, spoke to members of Somerville High School’s Robotics Team about what they needed in the city, the answer was clear: a safe space.
Alphonse said there hadn’t been anything like that in Somerville since the Boys and Girls Club closed, while he was still in high school.
“My representation of a safe space was, to be honest, the parks,” he said. “Most of the time you go to those parks at the age of 14, 15, 16 years old, kids are smoking weed or sharing 40-ounce bottles and stuff like that … it just invited trouble.”
He explained that while Somerville isn’t known for gang violence, fights were not out of the ordinary. Beyond that, a majority of his friends dealt with substance use or mental health challenges. And he has even lost some to overdoses or suicide.
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Alphonse attributes those challenges in part to the lack of resources provided to them, both in the form of support services and opportunities to explore their interests.
At the Dojo, he and the rest of the staff and volunteers strive to provide those opportunities to the teens who go there looking for them.
The youth center’s programming is developed at their direction, and has a heavy focus on STEAM.
The center’s calendar includes open mics, video gaming events, art workshops, health and wellness workshops, job and financial literacy skills trainings and even parkour events, where participants can climb and jump across two shipping containers set up in an empty space behind the Dojo building.
Erich Haygun, who runs the open mics and a monthly video game event called Youthstream, explained that for many kids, the only place they can hang out and be themselves is online and in video games. But sometimes, those online interactions can turn negative. So having a physical space to gather and play games turns it into a more constructive experience.
“We can’t be toxic to each other. We have to give the fist bump at the beginning and end of the game,” Haygun said. “The goal is not the activity, the goal is everything that goes on around it. It’s how we treat each other.”
Beyond just providing a safe space to spend time and have fun, the adults at the Dojo strive to provide mentorship and career-building opportunities for the kids. They partner with local organizations like Somerville Education Foundation, which hosts a weekly program where speakers from local colleges come in to talk about different career paths, and QuestBridge, which helps low-income students access educational opportunities.
They hope to eventually work with some of the companies at Somernova to give students an opportunity to hear about STEAM careers or even participate in internships and hands-on education.
Alphonse also builds trust with the youth at the Dojo so they feel comfortable coming to him with questions about everyday life and the challenges of growing up.
“My biggest mistake was thinking that I had to go to Albion Park at 6 p.m. at night and ask somebody older than me that was smoking something, ‘Is this how life is?’” he said. “Youth deserve spaces away from home and away from school so they have that middle ground, like, ‘I’m not with an adult that’s always on me.’ I’m just an adult so if you want resources, I’ve got resources. If not, here’s some Doritos.”
Innovation in Union Square
The Somernova complex has a long history. In 1919, John Fitzgerald started Ames Safety Envelope, which made envelopes and file folders. In 1938, Fitzgerald purchased an 18,000-square-foot building at 21 Vine St., now Properzi Way, to house the manufacturing operation. By the 1980s, the company was both Somerville’s largest employer and the largest provider of color-coded file folders for the United States healthcare industry.
In the early 2000s, other organizations began moving into what was then known as the Ames Business Park. By 2014, it was completely full, with tenants including tech firms as well as a rock climbing gym, Aeronaut Brewing Company and more.
In 2018, real estate investment and development firm Rafi Properties purchased 300,000 square feet of the business park, rechristening it Somernova, or “Somerville’s Innovation Hub.”
“It’s all an innovation ecosystem,” said Sophie Meyer, executive operations manager at Sublime Systems, one of the many climate tech companies with space at the complex. “It’s about how are you bringing people together to solve big problems, and having that concentration of companies is great because you run into them and foster connection.”
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Sublime was started by two battery scientists who wanted to use the chemistry involved in batteries to tackle the carbon emissions from one of the most ubiquitous construction materials around, cement.
Portland cement, the most common type of cement used around the world as an ingredient for concrete and other materials, emits a large amount of carbon during its fabrication. About half of the emissions come from the fossil fuels used to heat the kilns used in the process, and half is emitted when limestone in those kilns chemically decomposes, according to the company’s website.
However, by using an electrochemical process on rocks and industrial waste that don’t release carbon, Sublime has developed a new replacement for portland cement that can be used just like its predecessor.
While Sublime cement is still being tested, Meyer said they have done a couple of successful test pours in the field and are already connecting with construction companies for when they’re ready to go to market.
The company began at Somernova in 2018 at The Engine, an incubator started by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to support “tough tech” ventures, a term that refers to companies working to solve the world’s biggest problems, like climate change.
In 2020, when they outgrew their space there, Sublime moved within the complex to Greentown Labs, another incubator for climate tech startups.
In 2022, Sublime opened a new 6,500-square-foot research and development facility at Somernova and last month, they added an additional 23,000 square feet to that space, which also now houses their offices. They maintain a prototyping lab at Greentown Labs and are in the process of opening a manufacturing facility in Holyoke.
Meyer said having the open office space in the same place as the research labs has given different departments within the company the opportunity to collaborate in new ways, as, she says, “chaos promotes collaboration.”
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The proximity to their former location was a plus as well. Instead of a big production involving moving trucks taking everything across the city, they could easily carry everything the short distance so they didn’t lose any time that could have been used for research.
“We were thrilled to move over here and stay connected with the ecosystem,” Meyer said. “Additionally, staying in Somerville allows us to maintain access to the great talent pipeline coming out of area universities.”
Kristin Phelan, a spokesperson for Rafi Properties, said watching companies like Sublime grow is part of the property owners’ mission in developing the complex.
“We’ve always been this nucleus for how production can prototype and evolve and scale,” she said. “It’s fun to be a part of the future.”
Tech and community come together
The numerous climate and tough tech companies at Somernova have plenty of opportunities to meet up and collaborate at the complex, whether by meeting up for a beer at Aeronaut or having lunch in one of the comfortable common areas.
“Where else can you climb (a rock wall) next to a venture capitalist who is funding climate tech?” Phelan said.
But Somernova’s public-facing amenities are a draw for the wider neighborhood as well. Dan Brown, general manager of Bouldering Project, said a large portion of the gym’s clientele lives very close by.
On any given weeknight, the gym’s lobby will be packed with stowed bicycles, he said.
“The goal is to be the third place where people can come after work and socialize,” he said. “It’s a great place to meet friends, find a climbing partner and get a beer next door.”
In addition to bouldering walls and climbing ropes (the Somerville location is the only one of the chain’s 11 gyms across the country that offers rope climbing, according to its website) it features a community coworking space and anything you would expect to find at a typical gym: cardio machines, free weights, a yoga studio and group fitness classes.
The climbing walls feature a variety of routes aimed at varying experience levels from beginner to expert, and each route is color-coded so climbers can easily find ones that fit the challenge level they’re looking for. Three days a week, gym employees will take down the holds from a section of the wall to be cleaned and rearranged, so there is always a new challenge.
“We want a new climber to get the same attention an advanced climber would get,” Brown said. “You’re able to walk to a section of the wall and get an even distribution of the colors and grades.”
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Bouldering Project frequently hosts community events, like a recent documentary screening that also featured a selection of local vendors, as well as meetups and special workshops. Brown said they try to feature programming that is helpful for not just the rock climbing community but the wider Somerville-Cambridge area.
Even on non-event days, gym-goers hanging out in the community coworking space are encouraged to order food in from nearby restaurants, like Carolicious, a Venezuelan food stall located inside Aeronaut that’s popular with Somernova tenants for its delicious arepas and signature basil sauce. The stall frequently caters events throughout the complex.
The brewery has its own packed calendar of events, often hosting trivia or live music as well as monthly open mics, drag shows and “Books and Brews” reading meetups.
Aeronaut also recently worked with Somerville Chocolate, which makes bean-to-bar chocolate in a combination kitchen and retail space inside the brewery, soaking imported cacao nibs in cask-aging beer to create both a chocolate-flavored beer and a beer-flavored chocolate bar.
Rafi tries to foster those community connections by working with tenants to determine what amenities are needed at Somernova. Phelan explained that after tenants expressed a need for both outdoor and indoor common spaces, they turned a former parking lot into a courtyard that serves as an open-air seating area for Aeronaut and an event space in warm weather, and converted an adjacent maintenance garage into a common room.
Another big draw for members of the neighborhood is Somerville Bike Kitchen, a bike repair cooperative that shares space with the Dojo. For three hours on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, the Bike Kitchen holds an open shop where members of the community can access tools and repair manuals to work on their bikes.
Katharine Lang, one of the Bike Kitchen’s staff members, said most of their visitors come from Somerville or Cambridge, but sometimes they get people coming in from even further out for the sake of meeting up with other biking enthusiasts.
“The expertise can range. Sometimes you get somebody who used to work at a bike shop, some people are just there for the community aspect,” Lang said. “We definitely don’t claim to be a bike shop or have professional services, and no one is going to fix your bike for you. It is definitely DIY, but volunteers are there to help guide you.”
The future of Somernova
Recently, Rafi Properties applied to the city of Somerville for a zoning change that would allow it to significantly increase Somernova’s space over the next decade.
The plans the firm filed in December called for a $3.3 billion project that would add 1.6 million square feet of mostly commercial space, including five buildings ranging from nine to 16 stories, more than 1,200 parking spots and a brand-new $30 million community center, the local Cambridge Day reported when the project was initially announced in September.
Alphonse said the new community center would mean big changes for the Dojo, because with their current space, they’re limited in how many people they can serve.
“The more impactful events and workshops that we do, sometimes we can’t even fit people in here,” he said.
However, the proposal immediately received blowback from neighbors.
Common complaints included the lack of housing included in the expansion, potential impacts from 10 years of construction, and that the massive amount of parking space would exacerbate traffic on the area’s narrow streets.
There was also concern that the proposal could harm Somerville’s arts community, as it is currently covered by the city’s fabrication, or “fab,” zoning, which was introduced in 2019 to support the creative economy.
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In February, Rafi Properties withdrew the application, saying it wished to meet with the community and develop a new proposal to submit this spring. The company has held a handful of community meetings since then, hoping to gather feedback for the next draft of Somernova 2.0.
At one of those community meetings earlier this month, a group of teens walked with Alphonse from the Dojo to the meeting venue to speak about the impact the youth center has had and its need for more space. They talked about things they wanted, like a basketball court, more video games, a computer lab and a space where they could create.
“Them being there and them telling how important the Dojo is to them and why they need more, that makes my job so much easier,” Alphonse said. “That’s worth working for.”
