Fidelity Puts 800K SF Boston Headquarters Up For Sublease

Fidelity Investments, one of the largest financial services companies in Boston, has put its headquarters office on the market for sublease as it prepares to move into a Seaport development.

The company has put its office at 245 Summer St. up for sublease, according to a source close to the building.

Savills' first-quarter office market report says the 803K SF space is "now on the market" and "will further pressure availability upward." The 14-story building near South Station totals 910K SF. 

Fidelity declined to comment. 

The company is expected to move next year to a new 650K SF office at the redevelopment of the World Trade Center on Seaport Boulevard. Pembroke, Fidelity's sister company, is leading that redevelopment, branded as Commonwealth Pier. 

The development is set to open in phases, starting with the retail, restaurants and open space components coming online this summer and Fidelity's workspace opening next year.

Last year, Fidelity bumped up its return-to-office mandate, requiring employees to report to the office 50% of the time, up from 25%. The company has 5,860 employees in Boston, making it the 20th-largest employer in the state as of 2024.

Fidelity moved into 245 Summer St. in 1999 after acquiring the property. It then sold it in 2004 to Benderson Development, but Fidelity continued to lease the space.

In 2012, Fidelity made the building its official headquarters, shifting it from an office at 82 Devonshire St. In 2020, Horizon Real Estate Investors, an affiliate of Fidelity separate from the entity that leases it, acquired it for $728.5M from Benderson.

The space's addition to the sublease market could negatively impact the slowly recovering Boston office market.

The city's availability rate last quarter was 23.5%, representing a year-over-year increase but a 90-basis-point decline from the previous quarter — the first quarterly decline in three years, according to Savills' Q1 report. Sublease availability has decreased slightly from 4.5M SF in Q1 2024 to 3.6M SF at the end of last quarter. 

Leasing activity last quarter totaled 1M SF, up from 600K SF in the same quarter last year, according to Savills. But that was down from the third quarter, when 3.4M SF of leasing activity marked a two-year high.