Eye and Ear building breaks ground

Photo by Jon Pack. Joining the groundbreaking at 800 Huntington Ave. on Oct. 27 were (from left): Beal Companies Senior VP Stephen Faber; Beal Senior VP Peter Spellios; state Rep. Jeffrey Sánchez; Beal Chairman Bruce Beal; Mass. Eye and Ear President and CEO John Fernandez; Mayor Thomas Menino; Mass. Eye and Ear Board Chair Wyc Grousbeck; Beal President Robert Beal; and City Councilor Mike Ross.

Construction began on Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary’s (Mass. Eye and Ear) new facility on Huntington Avenue on Oct. 27. The groundbreaking was attended by Mayor Thomas Menino.

Mass. Eye and Ear will be the tenant of the building and will operate out-patient clinics and surgeries, office space and a small café and retail area, mostly for building employees.

The $75 million facility is owned and being developed by The Beal Companies. It involves the renovation and expansion of an existing two-story building located at 800 Huntington Ave. The finished three-story building will be approximately 90,000 square feet and contain approximately 150 parking spaces.

Construction is expected to take 14 months.

The developers have previously assured the community that the building at 800 Huntington Ave. would never have a rooftop billboard again. The old building had a large billboard on its roof, which was disliked by many Hill residents.

Beal proposed a much larger project in 2008 for an eight-story laboratory/commercial building that was scrapped in large part because of neighborhood disapproval. State Rep. Jeffrey Sánchez and Menino both spoke out against the original project repeatedly at the time.

 

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