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Following a failed procurement effort in 2025, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation extended leases for businesses at most of its large service plazas through June 2027.
The transportation agency finalized 18-month master lease extensions with existing operators McDonald's and Gulf Oil at 14 of the state's 18 service plazas through June 30, 2027, the Boston Business Journal reported. Under a master lease agreement, a business oversees management of the plaza and subleases space to other plaza businesses.
The other four service plazas in the state already have master leases that run through the same time period.
The 14 leases that were renewed had been set to expire Wednesday following the fallout of a bidding process for redevelopment and management of the state’s plazas.
In June 2025, MassDOT designated Irish retail giant Applegreen as the winner of a bid for a 35-year contract for administration of the plazas. The company then backed out of the deal in September, citing a variety of factors, after three months of negotiation with the state failed to seal the terms of the contract.
At the same time, Global Partners, a rival bidder for the contract, contested the deal, the BBJ reported. Global Partners argued that MassDOT’s procurement process was “fatally compromised by illicit communications, undisclosed conflicts of interest, and violations of Massachusetts procurement and ethics laws," according to the report.
Global Partners also argued that its bid would have offered the state roughly $900M more than Applegreen’s bid. The company filed several lawsuits against MassDOT and Applegreen over the plaza process.
Before its bid collapsed, Applegreen had proposed to completely redevelop nine of the locations and refurbish another nine. It planned to work with local companies Suffolk Construction and Upland Architects.
Applegreen is owned by private equity giant Blackstone and operates roughly 530 service plazas globally, including 113 in the U.S. Global Partners was ranked the fifth-largest public company in Massachusetts in 2023. It reported roughly $17B in revenue last year and has roughly 5,000 employees.
Following the chaos of the procurement bid, MassDOT Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt stepped down in October.
MassDOT plans to review the failed procurement before issuing a revised request for proposals.
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