Retrofitting business suburbia: competition, transformation, and challenges in metropolitan Boston’s suburban office parks

Hendrik Jansen and Brent D. Ryan

Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, 2019, vol. 12, issue 2, 203-229

Abstract: This paper examines the retrofitting and redevelopment of suburban office parks, and in particular, the planning, design, and policy issues and challenges associated with this redevelopment. Recent literature indicates a shift of suburban business development in favor of increasingly competitive central cities, a dilemma for planners charged with revitalizing aging suburban business parks. To understand the nature and causality of suburban office park retrofitting and redevelopment, we conducted 13 qualitative, semi-structured interviews with planners, developers, and officials in the inner Boston metropolitan region. Interviews indicated increasing obsolescence, with widespread redevelopment as a coping strategy. Strategies included densification, mixed uses, enhanced public spaces, and attempts to enhance transit. We examine two case studies: Northwest Park in Burlington, MA, and Needham Crossing, in Needham, MA: both are former office parks redeveloped as mixed-use developments. Our research clarifies the nature and types of physical redevelopment, as well as the specific motivations behind redevelopment as a planning strategy for enhancing the viability of aging suburban office developments.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1080/17549175.2018.1552886

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