Featured Project of the Month: The Growth Cos. begins transformation of 16,000 s/f mixed-use 1234 Boylston Street

This month real estate development firm The Growth Companies, Inc. will begin construction at 1234 Boylston St. on Rte. 9 in Chestnut Hill across from WS Development's "The Street." Two buildings, occupied for the past 17 years by Finagle-a-Bagel and The Growth Companies, will be demolished to make way for one retail building. The new, two-story, 16,000 s/f building will relocate two near-by Bank of America locations (The Chestnut Hill Mall and The Street) into a 3,700 s/f drive-thru together with Finagle-A-Bagel into the first floor and Sleepy's Mattress and The Growth Companies new offices on the second floor. Construction begins this month and will be completed in the spring of 2016. Over the past 25 years The Growth Companies has expanded its Chestnut Hill holdings by acquiring several properties contiguous to its office campus, adding to and repositioning them into new commercial and retail as Route 9 evolved into a high-end retail, office, and residential corridor. 1234 Boylston is one of The Growth Companies properties from those early beginnings, and its transformation marks yet another piece of the mixed-use vision the developer has been helping to realize for this area of the town. According to Fred Margolis, president of The Growth Companies, "Our new Chestnut Hill development is a fine example of our continuing interest in the development of village-style retail and is an interesting, art-full, modern building." Boston design firm Stantec designed the reimagined building and site, as well as the landscape architecture, civil engineering, environmental engineering, and traffic planning. The contractor is Bowdoin Construction Corp. and the Law Office of Robert L. Allen Jr. provided permitting services.