The toymaker’s headquarters relocation marks Boston’s largest leasedeal of the year

By Catherine Carlock Globe Staff,Updated September 9, 2025, 10:51 a.m.

Boston’s commercial real estate industry on Monday nabbed something that’s become alltoo rare in this rocky economic landscape: a straight-up win.

Toymaker Hasbro — whose iconic brands include Monopoly, Scrabble, My Little Pony, and Potato Head — is relocating its headquarters to 400 Summer St. in Boston’s Seaport District from its current home in Pawtucket, R.I., by the end of 2026. The Boston office will be home to Hasbro’s toys, board games, and licensing businesses, along with corporate services.

The long-awaited decision marks Boston’s largest lease deal of the year so far, and comes as the city’s office and laboratory markets have wrestled with record-high vacancy rates and slow job growth.

In Monopoly parlance: The Hasbro deal means Boston passed GO and (rather than

$200) collected 700 jobs in the process.

“Boston is winning,” said Wil Catlin, managing director at Boston Realty Advisors.

It’s an echo of the go-go days the city’s business and real estate scene enjoyed for a bit before the COVID-19 pandemic, when brand-name companies moving their headquarters to Boston, and specifically the Seaport, was almost commonplace.

That kicked off in 2016, when General Electric Co. announced it would leave Fairfield, Conn. for Boston. The 17-story, elliptical-shaped glass tower at 121 Seaport Blvd. landed two such deals — Alexion Pharmaceuticals, which moved from New Haven, and industrial software company PTC, which moved from Needham — within a two-week span in 2017, the same year sneaker maker Reebok beat feet from Canton to the Innovation and Design Building.

Of course, GE has faced its own challenges, and last year split into three companies. The building along Fort Point Channel that would have served as its headquarters is now a laboratory for drug giant Eli Lilly & Co., a deal made after GE said it would sell the site back to the state and reimburse the $87 million in incentives it got to move to Massachusetts.

Incentives were also at play in Hasbro’s relocation deal, with offers from both Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Governor Maura Healey’s office confirmed a $14 million offer to Hasbro via the state’s Economic Development Incentive Program; the council managing the program will discuss the incentives later this month.

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