“Of course we’re keeping the water tower,” Simpson said. “I don’t think it was even a question.”

A Changed City

The Necco factory’s transformation has broad implications for Cambridge, on a practical as well as symbolic level.

“This is a big step in the evolution of Cambridge,” Sullivan says.

The Necco factory’s fate signals the transformation of an industrial city into a high-tech mecca–one that depends on its universities for survival.

The move might speed up a change in the demographics of the city: Necco was a large employer of Cambridge’s immigrant labor force, which, according to Gaffney, was once mostly Italian and is now for the most part Brazilian.

80 percent of the company’s employees will have jobs at the new factory in Revere.

But when Novartis makes its hires, it will draw, to a large extent, on the “intellectual capital” of Cambridge’s population, rather than its semi- skilled labor.

Sullivan guesses that the Novartis’ move will probably nudge up real estate prices in an area already under great pressure from gentrification.

“We think of it as too much money chasing too little real estate,” he says. “Novartis will certainly add to that.”

The presence of the new research facilities will, however, be a boon for Cambridge’s universities, and for people looking for employment in the high-tech industry.

“I think Cambridge’s history has really passed it by,” Gaffney says. “Necco was the largest footprint left around MIT, and now it’s going to be high tech. I think it’s good for the city–and maybe it’s what Cambridge wants.”

Steele says that Novartis is planning to establish major ties with both Harvard and MIT. At the 100 Building, conference rooms with await seminars with academia. And although he declined to discuss specifics, Steele says that concrete plans are already underway for collaborative projects between Novartis and scientists at MIT.

Utilitas

Kendall Square smells different these days—the era when neighbors could tell whether Necco was churning out chocolates or peppermints just by taking a deep breath is over.