Kendall received a boost from the opening of the Cambridge Innovation Center in 1999.

The 160,000-square-foot facility provides resources and inexpensive office space for young entrepreneurs attracted to the area by high-profile tech and biomedical companies.

Steve Vinter, site director of Google’s Cambridge office, which previously rented space in the Cambridge Innovation Center, noted the important role the CIC played in making Kendall a hub for innovation.

“You need an incubator to attract the start-ups there and cornerstone tenants that you can build around,” Vinter said.

Founded in 2011, the Harvard Innovation Lab serves a similar purpose, striving to encourage entrepreneurship among students, faculty, and community members.

At the i-Lab, located across the street from the vacant swath of land that will one day be home to Harvard’s Allston Science Center, local entrepreneurs and University affiliates can receive support for launching their own ventures.

“We think of ourselves as a start-up within Harvard. We’re always open to new ideas,” said Gordon S. Jones, managing director of the i-Lab.

The i-Lab’s mission, however, differs from the CIC’s. Rowe, the co-founder and CEO of the Kendall incubator, said the companies at the CIC tend to be in more advanced stages of development than those at the i-Lab.

Allston has yet to attract big-name companies like those in Kendall. But the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences may relocate there, which could add an incentive for biotech businesses to establish a presence in Allston.

And the working-class Allston neighborhood has received financial backing from one of the industry giants located in Kendall Square. In 2011, Google—which according to Vinter has no plans to move out of Kendall Square—invested almost $30 million in the new Charlesview Apartment Complex, a construction project whose completion is key to the University’s plans for Allston. The new complex will free up the current complex’s land, which abuts the Business School.

The realization of Harvard’s dreams for Allston may be hindered by the fact that the area faces transporation issues Kendall Square did not. While Kendall benefits from its stop on the MBTA Red Line, Allston is only accessible by bus.

Sullivan pointed out some of the difficulties Harvard’s Allston hub will have to overcome: “Housing, transportation, and scientists all being in close proximity to one another—none of those things are present in Allston right now.”

Allston’s future as a center for science and innovation remains distant. After halting construction due to financial constraints in 2009, the University has just restarted planning in the past year. In July, Harvard announced that it will relaunch construction in 2014.

Kendall Square’s evolution is just one model that Allston might mimic.

“[Allston] will have its own character,” McCready said, “but no one knows what that is.”

—Staff writer Kerry M. Flynn can be reached at kflynn@college.harvard.edu.