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.
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