NuSquare Life Science Training Center receives $50 million to train students

Roxbury’s NuSquare Life Science Training Center has recently received $50 million to support training Franklin Cummings Tech students, most of them of color, and other college students and adult workers to enter the major growth industry locally.

The $50 million is a part of an economic development bill that includes a variety of investments and policy initiatives that look to increase support for workers and businesses in the life sciences, clean energy technology, and manufacturing industries, while maintaining a larger focus on making Massachusetts more affordable and competitive.

The bill is funded at $3.96 billion in bond authorizations, along with $500 million for life sciences and $400 million for climate technology.

The NuSquare Life Science Training Center is planned on two floors with a total of 40,000 square feet in a six-story building to be built on the Blair parking lot in Nubian Square.

The center will also include a 300-car garage, a 300-seat performance hall for local performance groups in the community, and housing.

Instructors in the center will be from Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology, Roxbury Community College, Northeastern University and Mass BioEd.

The proposed center is also a part of a $200 million development that was previously approved by the Boston Planning Development Agency, and the $50 million amendment to the original bill was offered by state Representatives Chynah Tyler and Michael Moran and state Senators Liz Miranda and Lydia Edwards.

Richard Taylor, owner and developer of the Life Science Training Center, talked about the possibilities that the center can provide for residents. 

“The Life Science Center in Boston is one of our largest economic centers and there’s a strong demand for trained talent as they continue to do research on maladies [and] provide venture capital in companies like Moderna and Vertex,” he said.

“If you look at Nubian Square itself, we have a cluster of trainable talent — Roxbury Community College, Benjamin Franklin, John D. O’Bryant, Madison Park, Dearborn STEM, a number of charter schools, Northeastern. … All of these provide trainable talent right here. … So it just makes sense for us to have an economic education cluster here … (for) kids and adults to improve income inequality and provide talent for the Life Science industry,” said Taylor.

Tyler said that she is proud that this legislation has passed.

“This initiative is a great investment for helping to bridge the racial wealth gap for Black and brown communities of color in Nubian Square. Nubian Square is a major hub that means so much to many people in many ways — arts, culture, entrepreneurship to name a few. I am happy to help deliver this legislation because it’ll certainly enhance upon the economic legacy of Nubian Square culture,” she said.

Miranda agrees and is proud of the Roxbury delegation for delivering this historic investment in Nubian Square.

“The steps we take today can seed a future in which the racial wealth gap in Boston is of our history, not our future … if advanced by the Governor, [it could] be transformative in bridging the talent we have with a world-class education and high-paying careers. With this public investment, we are actively diversifying the pipeline to education and training in emerging industries across life sciences and climate tech,” she said.

Moran said he knows that this is a great opportunity to bring Black and brown people into the life science industry, given his previous work in the life sciences field.

“One of the reasons I ran for office was to bridge the wealth gap I see in [and] across my district. … There are many great projects coming to Nubian Square in the next decade and NuSquare will be a fantastic anchor,” he said.