Wayfair’s move to a single Boston headquarters at 500 Boylston St. has moved from lease to construction. The city of Boston issued a building permit on Oct. 16, 2026, for a $13.27 million office renovation on floors 2 through 5 of the 500 Boylston/222 Berkeley complex in Back Bay, where the online home goods retailer plans to bring its Boston workforce together in 2027.
The Boston Business Journal reported on Oct. 26 that building owner Oxford Properties secured the permit as Wayfair consolidates its Boston office footprint to about 361,000 square feet at the complex. When the move is finished, Wayfair will have left its longtime headquarters at 4 Copley Place and a second office at 10 St. James Ave.
What the $13.27 million Wayfair permit covers
The permit, number ALT1879847 from Boston’s Inspectional Services Department, lists a reported construction cost of $13,270,701. It describes an office renovation for Wayfair that includes selective demolition, new framing and drywall, glass and glazing, and new finishes, along with new or relocated heating and cooling, electrical, fire alarm, plumbing and fire protection systems. It also calls for new structural steel to carry interconnecting stairs between floors. The filing says the project will be phased.
City records show related work already under way. On Oct. 5, the city issued an electrical permit valued at $602,000 and a fire alarm permit valued at $74,000 for renovations on floors 2 and 3 of 500 Boylston St.
A smaller footprint for Boston’s former largest office tenant
The new headquarters is a sharp step down from Wayfair’s peak. The company grew into the largest office tenant in Boston during the last decade, according to Banker & Tradesman. It opened the Copley Place headquarters in 2014 with about 100,000 square feet, signed for 395,000 square feet at 500 Boylston/222 Berkeley in 2018 and added 302,000 square feet at 10 St. James Ave. in 2019. As of Dec. 31, 2024, Wayfair occupied 1.3 million square feet in Boston, according to its annual report.
Figures for the consolidated space differ by source. The Business Journal put the new footprint at about 361,000 square feet. In December 2025, a Wayfair spokesperson told The Boston Globe the company was leasing 340,000 square feet for the Boylston Street headquarters, which the spokesperson said would hold its roughly 2,500 Boston employees with room to grow.
That headcount is about half of what it was in 2018, when Wayfair employed more than 5,000 people in Boston and was awarded $31 million in state tax credits for its expansion, the Globe reported. State officials later rescinded nearly all of those credits. Wayfair has announced several rounds of job cuts since 2022, including 936 jobs at its Boston headquarters in a January 2024 round of 1,650 layoffs and 170 Massachusetts-based jobs in March 2025.
DraftKings heads downtown to 225 Franklin St.
Part of the space Wayfair is taking belongs to DraftKings, which is leaving the complex. The sports betting company is moving its headquarters to 225 Franklin St., next to Post Office Square in the Financial District, also in 2027. Oxford Properties owns both buildings.
DraftKings moved to 222 Berkeley St. from the Financial District in 2018, leasing 105,000 square feet. As of Dec. 31, 2024, its Boston headquarters totaled 125,000 square feet under a lease scheduled to expire in 2029, according to the company’s annual report as cited by Banker & Tradesman. The Globe reported that DraftKings will take about the same amount of space at 225 Franklin St., a 1960s tower that once served as State Street’s headquarters.
What it means for Back Bay and downtown offices
The two moves keep both homegrown companies in Boston at a time when much of the region’s office market is struggling. Greater Boston’s office vacancy rate hit a record in the third quarter, as The Boston Report detailed in its look at the region’s 24% office vacancy. Back Bay has held up better than the Financial District. At the end of the third quarter of 2025, Back Bay’s 15.6 million-square-foot office market had a 15.2% vacancy rate, the lowest of Boston’s three major office submarkets, with average asking rents of $69.40 per square foot, according to a CBRE report cited by Banker & Tradesman.
Other large employers are also reshaping their Back Bay space. Liberty Mutual has filed plans to expand its Back Bay headquarters with a 10-story addition. For more coverage of companies, jobs and real estate across the region, see the Boston business and economy section of The Boston Report’s Boston News hub.
What the companies have said
“This move, which we expect to happen in 2027, keeps us in the Back Bay and reinforces our commitment to Boston as our global headquarters,” Wayfair spokesperson Tara Lambropoulos said in an email to Banker & Tradesman in November 2025.
“We’re thrilled about Wayfair’s decision to bring their global headquarters to 222 Berkeley/500 Boylston,” Oxford Properties Vice President Matthew Polhemus said in a statement at the time. DraftKings spokesperson Stephen Miraglia told the Globe the company “remains deeply committed to Boston where we have built and grown our company.”
Tucker White, head of office market intelligence for brokerage Avison Young, told the Globe the DraftKings move is “great for Post Office Square, which can obviously use a little more vibrancy.” Mark Fallon, research director at brokerage Hunneman, told the paper that keeping both tenants “seems like a huge win for Oxford.”
Sources
- Boston Business Journal: Oxford Properties secures $13M permit as Wayfair consolidates Back Bay footprint (Oct. 26, 2026)
- Boston Inspectional Services permit ALT1879847 at 500 Boylston St. (issued Oct. 16, 2026)
- Building permit record for 500 Boylston St., Boston
- Banker & Tradesman: Wayfair, DraftKings HQs Relocating in Office Shakeup
- The Boston Globe: DraftKings and Wayfair plan big moves for their headquarters in Boston
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