Mr. Potato Head is ready to build a new home along Boston’s Summer Street.
Hasbro, one of the world’s largest toy companies and manufacturer of Mr. Potato Head and the iconic board game Monopoly, said it will relocate its headquarters to Massachusetts from its longtime home across the state border in Rhode Island. The decision concludes a real estate search that spanned more than a year.
Hasbro has finalized a deal for about 265,000 square feet at 400 Summer St. in Boston’s Seaport District, a company representative confirmed. The lease with landlord WS Development, which owns the 16-story building alongside joint venture partners KKR and PSP Investments, marks one of the region’s largest new office deals so far this year.
The toy maker’s new space is expected to house at least 700 employees by the end of next year, a spokesperson said, adding that the move to Boston coincides with Hasbro’s broader effort to “accelerate innovation, attract top talent and drive long-term growth.”
“Boston’s thriving business community, deep academic partnerships and cultural vibrancy ... give Hasbro an unparalleled foundation for growth,” Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks said in a statement, adding that it will join the company’s office in the Seattle area to support the company’s goals. “Together, these offices will fuel the next chapter of Hasbro.”
The relocation will trim some of Hasbro’s corporate footprint, which currently spans the entirety of the 343,000-square-foot building at 1027 Newport Ave. in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The company owns the 1920s-era property, and it’s not immediately clear whether Hasbro plans to lease it out or list it for sale once the toy maker officially decamps for Massachusetts.
The company kicked off its prospective relocation last year and has since toured some of the largest availabilities across the Boston office market.
Building up Boston
Hasbro’s commitment extends a recent string of relocation wins for Boston over the past several years as the city scrambles to reestablish its pre-pandemic footing.
Fellow toy maker Lego Group, for example, in 2023 said it would move its North American headquarters from Connecticut to Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. It moved into its 161,800-square-foot space at 1001 Boylston St. last year.
Those relocations, combined with a series of large-scale renewals, have helped prop up the city’s office market after years of major occupancy losses.
Colliding factors such as flatlined leasing activity, a burst of recently constructed properties and high-profile move-outs have pushed the market’s vacancy rate up to a record high of about 14%, according to CoStar data, more than double the levels reported in the years prior to the pandemic’s 2020 outbreak.
Boston’s availability rate has already climbed to nearly 19%, according to CoStar data, largely because of more than 13 million square feet of sublet space, which has weighed down the market and muted demand among tenants that had previously fueled the city’s leasing and investment momentum.
A widespread recovery has been largely elusive for Boston, similar to other challenged markets across the country. Yet a few bright spots have surfaced in recent months that appear to show the market has likely already hit rock bottom and is now beginning to look up — or at least display signs of a gradual stabilization.