Landmark Center, in no small way, was the catalyst for the redevelopment of the historic Fenway neighborhood of Boston. Once it was seen as an industrial area near the noisy Fenway Park field, filled with car dealerships, hawkers, and parking lots. Eighteen years later the desirable and vibrant neighborhood has added equal amounts of housing, retail, and office space and fetches rents equal to Boston’s best neighborhoods.

The 1929 building was originally a Sears and Roebuck regional distribution center. As the largest single building in Boston at over 1.5M sf, it really was the size of a small neighborhood, and had to be carefully programmed using urban design thinking.

A two-story mix of big-box retail, restaurants, and an eight-cinema theater were included to bring street life to the neighborhood, and to create an outdoor street bridging through the site, connecting the reinvigorated energy of the adjacent train station to the growing neighborhood. Class B office space infused with an industrial character was created above to bring larger tenants needing satellite growth space to Boston.

The deep 4-acre floor plates of the original building were great for storing hammers and other Sears fare, but not good for access to light for office workers, so two large atriums were inserted to carry light deep within. Factory windows were carefully recreated to be better insulated, without losing their interesting texture and scale, and brought the benefit of a National Trust historic tax credit for the owner.

completed at Bruner/Cott