Paul's House Diary

After roughly 50 years under construction, the final piece of the massive Prudential Center puzzle is finally being put into place. 888 Boylston Street is a new office tower that will be wrapping around the core currently rising in front of the food court at the Prudential Center Mall. The master plan for the entire complex has been in flux since the construction of the iconic Prudential Tower back in 1964. Numerous iterations of the buildout, which is an air-rights project over the Mass Pike, have started in fits over the years, including the Soviet-block looking AVA apartments known as Tent City and the award winning R2D2 building (111 Huntington Avenue), which wears the fanciest crown in all of Boston.

This new building won’t even come close to rivaling the height of the Pru, but it will greatly enhance street level interaction with the complex and Boylston Street. Rather than a barren plaza that leads up to the locked doors of the food court, there will be multi-level retail directly abutting the sidewalk, including Boston’s first Eataly, the market/food court made popular in NYC by superchef (official title) Mario Batali. The conceptual renderings of the new tower include wind turbines and a roof deck, making this a rather innovative project for the half-century old Prudential Center. While we may be losing a beloved food court (RIP Panda Express) as this tower grows, I think we’ll all be better for it in the long run.