Raffles Boston

Boston, MA

Raffles Boston is a $400+ million luxury hospitality, retail, and residential destination lauded as Boston’s most exciting new hotel opening in 2023. With an inventive cantilevered structure and Boston’s only hotel sky lobby, the 400-foot curved glass tower introduces a dramatic and sophisticated addition to the city’s skyline. The 35-story tower features 147 guestrooms and 146 condominium units. It represents the first-ever mixed-use property in North America for the world-renowned Raffles brand, a part of the Accor world hospitality group. Successfully integrating the new structure into its context presented a significant challenge, with the building’s modest footprint just 65 feet (20m) from the all-glass Hancock Tower and its adjacency to a historic landmark, the 100-foot-tall University Club. The appropriate design solution required integrating the contemporary structure into a neighborhood defined by a dense low-rise historic architectural fabric.

A second consideration involved generating a workable mixed-use program to meet the ambitious objectives of 16 distinctive gathering spaces, including a variety of exclusive venues dedicated solely to the building’s residents. The solution entailed securing air rights over the historic neighbor, allowing for an innovative approach by structural engineer McNamara Salvia. A 30-foot cantilever at the tower’s fourth floor extends over the University Club’s party wall. It supports the upper 29 stories, rising an additional 340 feet into the sky, with a second cantilever at the 17th floor. The cantilever approach yielded both programmatic and urban design benefits, granting the tower a contextually scaled street presence and allows the building to express itself as a sculptural form on the upper levels, with a distinctive freedom of movement not commonly seen in Boston architecture.

The project design team includes the award-winning firm Stonehill Taylor, responsible for the hotel and restaurant interiors, as well as several hotel amenity spaces. Rockwell Group designed the fitness center, spa, residential amenities, and condominium unit interiors, and Studio Paolo Ferrari designed the Long Bar restaurant venue. The Raffles development will also contribute over $22 million in public benefits, including street and public realm improvements, seven affordable housing units on-site, and an additional contribution of more than $13 million to support affordable housing initiatives in Boston, aligning closely with TAT’s mission.

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