Cummings' history of entrepreneurial spirit

It is hardly surprising that Cummings Properties is one of New England's strongest boosters of entrepreneurship. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to describe entrepreneurs as the lifeblood of the firm's existence for the last 40 years.

Among more than 2,100 firms whose business homes are in Cummings buildings, almost 25 percent lease fewer than 2,000 square feet each. No other New England developers work so diligently and so hard in recruiting and encouraging small businesses.

Although the firm has dozens of client companies occupying large blocks of space, up to about 150,000 square feet each, its principal niche is with companies leasing units of 5,000 to 20,000 square feet. Surely, it is much more expensive dealing with smaller leases, since every lease requires virtually the same salesmanship, and processing, and paperwork - but the policy has worked for Cummings for four decades.

Some Cummings clients are in the process of breaking away from places of business in their home or garage - their first real step on the road from "garage to glory." The present Chief Software Architect of the world's largest and most well known software giant, moved his own software firm almost 20 years ago to Cummings Center in Beverly, MA. He shared with Bill Cummings the reason for the move: His wife told him that if one more computer programmer came to work in their nearby home, he might find one less wife living there!

The firm has special arrangements in effect with numerous Massachusetts colleges for accommodating firms coming out of on-campus "hatcheries" and other nurturing environments at schools including Harvard, Babson, MIT, Tufts, Northeastern, and Boston University. In 1999, Bill and Joyce Cummings endowed the Cummings Chair of Entrepreneurship and Business Economics at Tufts University.

Cummings Properties surely spends heavily in accommodating very small firms, but it has enjoyed enormous success in helping those firms grow and prosper. And the growth has, of course, been very profitable for Cummings, as these often fast-growing firms cumulatively consume great quantities of space.

In 2007, Cummings Leasing Vice President Eric Anderson established the Massachusetts Association of Business Incubators (MABI), a member of the National Association of Business Incubators. MABI is an association created for the purpose of increasing support for business incubation programs in Massachusetts, enhancing public awareness, sharing experiences and exchanging referrals.

Similarly, the goal of the Massachusetts Office of Small Business & Entrepreneurship (OSBE), under the leadership of Executive Director André Porter, is to provide resources necessary for success by cross linking with the Commonwealth's many service providers of technical assistance and financing, as well as directly with small businesses.

Cummings Properties is proud to be a mentor and business partner to the burgeoning knowledge and talent base in Massachusetts. Come and learn what the company has done . . . and is doing . . . to grow business "right here in the neighborhood!"