Office/Retail/Mixed-Use
Ambitious Fenway Corners Project Moving Forward in Boston
Eight new buildings surrounding Boston's famed Fenway Park will include commercial, residential and retail uses.
The Boston Red Sox ownership group is taking Fenway Park’s historic draw and giving the five acres around it a modern approach with a $1.6-billion Fenway Corners development project full of commercial, residential and retail uses.
A newly formed joint venture, WS-Fenway-Twins Realty Venture, features the owners of the Red Sox as Fenway Sports Group Real Estate and the D’Angelo family—which owns the ’47 Brand and multiple sites in the Fenway neighborhood, including the Red Sox Team Store on Jersey Street—teaming up with WS Development to add 2.1 million sq ft of commercial, residential and retail uses that includes over 200 new residences, 40 new retail doors and two acres of new or improved public open space.
Yanni Tsipis, WS Development senior vice president of development, says construction could start as soon as mid-2026. Tsipis says that the urban site will require a high level of coordination during construction, and the project’s proximity to historic Fenway Parks adds a “layer of sensitivity regarding impacts to pedestrian circulation and game-day logistics.
“An important defining attribute of the entire Fenway Corners project,” Tsipis adds, “is the complete transformation of the public realm—the public spaces—in the vicinity of Fenway Park.”
WS says that eight new buildings surrounding Fenway Park will each reflect a “distinct scale and architectural style,” adding that several historic facades will be restored to preserve the character of Fenway’s architectural heritage. The project site spans Jersey Street, Brookline Avenue, Van Ness Street and Lansdowne Street on 13 privately owned parcels of land on four primary development blocks south of the Massachusetts Turnpike near historic Fenway Park.
Renderings from Morris Adjmi Architects, Jaklitsch/Gardner Architects and Gensler presented to the city show a 129-ft-tall, seven-story, 250,000-sq-ft office building behind Fenway’s famed Green Monster outfield wall at 55 Lansdowne St. The design of Fenway Corners North includes brick and exposed steel.
The 250,000 sq ft of total development in Fenway Corners North—part of the Lansdowne Block development—also calls for a pedestrian-focused passageway building over the Massachusetts Turnpike to connect Fenway Corners North with future development.
“The project aspires to build community and activity via active streetscapes and new public uses,” WS Development says, “while respecting the historic fabric and significance of Fenway Park, and the Richardson Building at the corner of Brookline Avenue and Jersey Street.”
Plans include restoring Arthur’s Alley, improving connectivity to Lansdowne Station, building protected bike lanes and a bike hub, upgrading sidewalks and creating a new one-acre public open space by pedestrianizing Jersey Street.
Throughout the project, Tsipis says the team is committed to a diversity of architectural styles, high-quality design and materiality and a focus on architectural contextualism given the historic nature of the site’s surroundings.
The Fenway Corners West portion of the project includes three separate phases of construction. Set for a 2027 start, the Brookline Block, designed by Herzog & De Meuron, will feature 485 below-grade parking spaces and over 600,000 sq ft of lab and office space. Also in 2027, the Van Ness Block is scheduled to start, featuring 300,000 sq ft of lab and office space.
For 2028, the Jersey Block is on tap for a total of 900,000 sq ft that includes 596,000 sq ft of lab and office space, 266 residential units and 650 below-grade parking spaces. This project is designed by Morris Adjmi Architects.
The project was fully approved by the city in July 2023 in two different zoning subdistricts, Fenway Corners North and Fenway Corners West. The planned first phase of the project is Fenway Corners North, currently undergoing a more detailed design review by the city’s planning department and civic commission.
