The Architectural Team-designed Fenway Center to begin construction

The Fenway Center development, solar power and all, just cleared the final barriers to construction. Designed by architecture and master planning firm The Architectural Team for Boston developer John Rosenthal, the five-building, 500-unit complex has received the final approval from the city's Department of Transportation. Now there could be steel in the ground at the 4.5-acre site around the intersection of Brookline and Beacon as early as this fall. The Architectural Team's design for Fenway Center incorporates residences, offices and neighborhood-oriented retail in a transit-oriented development adjacent to the new Yawkey Commuter Rail Station, connecting and integrating the new buildings into the existing Fenway, Kenmore, and Longwood Medical Area neighborhoods. The plan respects the urban grid and adds significant greenspaces for community enjoyment. Fenway Center will also feature one of the largest private solar power plants in Massachusetts, and the Metropolitan Boston Transit Authority's first net-zero-energy train station. "Fenway Center is a significant mixed-use transportation-oriented development project that will help to knit back together Boston's Fenway, Kenmore and Longwood Medical neighborhoods, which have long awaited this vital economic, social and urban revitalization," said Michael Binette, AIA, NCARB, VP and principal of The Architectural Team. "Our aim was to ensure that the master planning and design embodied our client's mission of transforming an unsightly and underutilized asset of the city into a vibrant and sustainable economic hub."