“I have not met Mr. Chan, but he has a project manager and an operations manager… they’re very competent people,” Kuelzer said.

She added that Chan’s project manager, Jim Covino, told her that Chan has “a lot of commitment to Harvard Square and preserving the unique character of Harvard Square.”

“They’ve been approached by [chain stores and restaurants]…and have declined to lease space to them so I think they’re after a commercial landscape that includes a lot of local business,” Kuelzer said.

Papyrus, UNO, and The Vitamin Shoppe are all tenants on Chan’s property from 18 to 28 JFK St., but all these businesses declined to comment in accordance with their corporate policies.

Chan is not the first foreign investor to purchase an abundance of property in Harvard Square. Polish immigrant Bertha E. Cohen, who came to Boston in 1905, opened her own hat shop called “Mademoiselle Bertha,” after which she quickly proceeded to purchase her first building.

Cohen continued to amass a number of buildings in Cambridge and Boston. At the time of her death in 1965, she left an estimated $20 million fortune. She was widely known as “the witch of Harvard Square” because of her unwillingness to sell buildings to the University.

—Staff writer Ivan B. K. Levingston can be reached at Ivan.Levingston@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @IvanLevingston.

—Staff writer Celeste M. Mendoza can be reached at Celeste.Mendoza@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @CelesteMMendoza.