Year-End Roundup: New Developments in the Route 128 West Corridor

If it felt like a lot of development news this year came with an asterisk (“proposed,” “paused,” “pivoting,” “revised again”), you’re not imagining it. But 2025 also produced a list of projects that did move forward—especially on the housing side. That tracks with what we’ve been seeing across Greater Boston: more towns are “open for business” on multifamily, and developers are actively chasing suburban opportunities where permitting pathways and market demand line up.

Bedford & Burlington

In Bedford, several smaller-to-mid-sized projects have been moving through permitting, including a notable 43-unit development at 269 and 277 Great Road. While smaller than some of the projects discussed below, that’s a meaningful addition to the local housing pipeline.

In Burlington, Town Meeting approved Nordblom’s plan to convert two office buildings in the Middlesex Turnpike area across from 3rd Ave/Northwest Park into 188 residential units. According to the Burlington Area Chamber of Commerce, the older office buildings “no longer meet modern standards or market needs” (emphasis added).

Lexington

In Lexington, the upzoned Hartwell Avenue Corridor has also been shifting from its earlier commercial focus toward residential development. BXP broke ground on a 312-unit residential project at 17 Hartwell Avenue (the “Arboretum”) in July. Nearby, Dinosaur Capital Partners plan to demolish a one-story commercial building at 7 Hartwell Avenue and build a five-story, 135-unit residential building in its place. And closer to Lexington Center, the 3-5 Militia Drive project is moving through the pipeline with a planned 292 residential units. Taken together, these projects represent a real increase in housing scale in two different parts of town.

Weston & Waltham

One of the biggest headline projects in our service area is in Weston: BXP’s proposed 480-unit multifamily development at 133 Boston Post Road, on the site of the former Weston Corporate Center office property. If you’ve been watching trends in the Corridor’s development, this office-to-residential redevelopment is a pretty clear signal about where momentum is strongest right now.

In Waltham, Willow Bridge Property Company received final approval in September for a 369-unit project at 1362 Main Street. That’s one of the larger housing approvals in Waltham in recent years, and it will be a project worth watching as it moves from permitting into construction.

Newton

In Newton, two of the Corridor’s most closely watched multi-use mega-projects regained momentum in 2025, and we’re genuinely excited to see both moving forward. The Newton City Council voted at the end of November to approve the final special permit for Mark Development’s Riverside project, a long-planned redevelopment that has gone through multiple careful iterations. Earlier versions of the project included significant office space and a hotel. A later, mid-pandemic version included large amounts of lab space. This newest (hopefully final) version includes 812 residential units and ground-floor restaurant/retail, paired with a more straightforward development program—but no office, lab, or hotel. Mark Development CEO Robert Korff explained it was necessary to “simplify the project for today’s economic times.“

Similarly, Northland Investment Corporation is also moving forward in Newton Upper Falls “with fewer buildings, more housing units.” Unlike the Riverside Project, Northland Newton Development still includes office space—just a lot less of it. The project now includes an impressive 822 apartments, including 145 affordable units, organized as a village-style neighborhood with a central green and a major historic mill restoration at its heart.

Are there any office-focused projects moving forward?

They do exist, but they’re the exception in the current moment. In Needham, for example, Boston Development Group has cleared the site for its proposed two-story medical office building at 633 Highland Avenue—but as of reporting in August, they had no schedule for when construction would begin. More broadly, a lot of the office development story right now is about repositioning existing space, rather than starting new ground-up office construction as tenants right-size and landlords focus on filling what already exists.

So what might all this housing mean for shuttle service?

Right now, the Vox on Two shuttle is 128 Business Council’s only service that’s explicitly residentially focused, but the direction of development is hard to ignore. If residential density continues to increase in areas just outside easy MBTA access, demand may grow for residential-focused shuttle partnerships—dependent, of course, on the existence of future-oriented funding partners.