- Boston developers say high-rise apartment towers no longer pencil, with one predicting no substantive residential high-rise construction in the city for at least five years.
- Only five high-rises have been completed in Greater Boston since 2024, versus 47 garden-style and 88 mid-rise projects, as tower costs reach up to $1 million per unit.
- Development is shifting to suburban low-rise and adaptive reuse near transit, where cheaper land, surface parking and MBTA Communities rezonings improve project economics.
Boston multifamily developers are walking away from downtown high-rise towers as rising construction costs and flat rents break project math, according to Bisnow.
Speaking at Bisnow’s Multifamily Annual Conference New England in South Boston on Sept. 24, 2026, developers said they have no plans to build new towers anytime soon and are looking to low-rise projects outside the urban core instead.
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A Generational Run Ends
High-rise apartment and condo towers transformed Boston’s skyline over the past 15 years. David Gillespie, senior vice president of development at Vivmark Residential, said the region may have already built all the high-rise apartments it will build over the next decade.
Gillespie recalled that when AvalonBay started the 28-story Avalon Exeter at 77 Exeter St. in 2011, there were no recent towers to use as comparables. By the time it opened in 2014, about a dozen similar high-rises were advancing across the city.
Last decade, 55% of new apartment projects in Boston were high-rises of at least 12 floors, the highest share of any U.S. city, according to a 2019 RentCafe report.
The Details
That trend has flipped. New RentCafe data shows only five high-rise multifamily buildings have been completed in Greater Boston since the start of 2024, compared with 47 garden-style and 88 mid-rise developments. Boston issued permits for 432 housing units in Q1 2026, down from 549 a year earlier and 642 in Q1 2024, The Boston Globe reported.
Multifamily construction input costs have climbed 52.8% since February 2020 and 7.3% in the 12 months ending in June 2026, per Associated Builders and Contractors. Carmel Partners’ Lee Bloch said Boston high-rise costs can reach $1 million per unit.
Revenue isn’t keeping pace. Greater Boston rents averaged $3,162 in Q2 2026, down 0.05% year-over-year, according to Matthews. The Procopio Cos. CEO Michael Procopio said substantive residential high-rise development won’t return for five years because the numbers simply don’t pencil.
Incentives Fall Short
Procopio said local incentives typically don’t move the needle unless heavily negotiated, and pointed to state rules like Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act review as another cost driver. The Healey-Driscoll administration has said it plans to shorten and streamline that review.
Mayor Michelle Wu has proposed $31.5 million in tax breaks for four market-rate projects totaling more than 1,400 units, including Fulcrum Global Investors’ 22-story One Mystic Ave. in Charlestown and Hines’ 22-24 Pratt St., which would rise up to 16 stories. All four must start construction within a year to qualify.
Stantec Architecture principal Aeron Hodges, who is working on three of the four projects, called the impact on groundbreaking uncertain, since the breaks help operations more than upfront financing. The same construction cost squeeze is sidelining projects nationally.
Why It Matters
The economics work far better in the suburbs, where land costs less and surface parking is cheaper than structured garages. The 2021 MBTA Communities Act spurred local rezonings allowing by-right multifamily near transit, and nearly 7,000 units had been proposed in those zones as of early 2026, according to The Boston Foundation.
Lexington has approved more than 1,600 units under its MBTA Communities zoning, including BXP’s 312-unit 17 Hartwell Ave. and Dinosaur Capital’s 130-unit 7 Hartwell Ave., which landed a $45.8 million construction loan from Affinius Capital and Axonic Capital in September. In Concord, Wood Partners broke ground in August on the 237-unit Alta Thoreau, with surface parking.
The shift matters for the region’s biggest owners, including newly formed Vivmark, whose development chief sees little chance of the high-rise boom repeating soon.
What’s Next
Hodges’ firm worked on recent towers including Toll Brothers’ 34-story Lyra at 260 Huntington Ave., completed this summer, and BXP’s 37-story Cambridge apartment tower, which began construction in 2024. But she said the projects penciling now are adaptive reuse or suburban low-rise.
She pointed to Class B suburban office parks with parking and a lower cost basis as conversion targets for renters willing to live outside the urban core. Watch whether Wu’s abatement projects break ground within the one-year window, an early test of whether incentives can revive urban towers.
