$2B Plan Detailed For Convention Center Expansion

By Veronica Grecu, Associate Editor

A $2 billion proposal to expand the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center aims to reinvigorate both the facility and the parking lots and the industrial parcels that flank the convention center in South Boston.

The convention center itself would get expanded ballroom and exhibit hall space. The 793-key Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel, which is linked to the facility by a sky bridge, would add several hundred rooms in a new wing. The plan also calls for development of mid-priced and luxury hotels, new retail, restaurants and a rooftop park. The plans first require approval by the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority and state lawmakers.

 In other commercial real estate news, the Boston Business Journal reported that Pfizer Inc. plans to expand its operations to a new building in Cambridge being developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at 610 Main Street in Kendall Square.The pharmaceutical company has already signed a 10-year lease for more than 180,000 square feet and intends to relocate researchers there from other facilities, as well as 400 new employees. The Kendall Square building will house Pfizer’s cardiovascular, metabolic and endocrine disease and neuroscience research units, reports the Business Journal.