DraftKings is leaving the Back Bay and placing its office bets on downtown again, making way for retailer Wayfair to furnish its own new home at the Boylston Street property that the gambling giant is exiting.
The moves, which will take place in 2027, are important milestones for both homegrown companies. DraftKings will end up at 225 Franklin St., next to Post Office Square, where it will occupy around the same amount of space as the 125,000 square feet it has reported it uses at the 500 Boylston/222 Berkeley complex, where Wayfair also has offices, according to brokerages following the deal. DraftKings’ headquarters was once downtown, in smaller digs on Summer Street, before moving to the Back Bay nearly seven years ago.
Wayfair, meanwhile, will exit its longtime headquarters at Copley Place as well as a nearby office on St. James Ave., assembling all its Boston corporate employees in the 500 Boylston complex. A spokesperson for Oxford Properties, which owns the downtown and Back Bay properties, declined to comment.
Wayfair’s move comes after several rounds of layoffs at the home furnishings giant in the past few years. The company employed at least 5,000 people in Boston in 2018, when it was awarded $31 million in state tax credits for an expansion in the city and opening a call center in Pittsfield.
Now, its Boston workforce is roughly half that size, according to information shared by the company. As recently as February, Wayfair told investors it was leasing 1.3 million square feet in Boston, a massive number that will drop significantly by the time these moves are complete. A Wayfair spokesperson said the 340,000 square feet it’s leasing for its new Boylston Street headquarters will offer ample room for its roughly 2,500 Boston employees as well as flexibility for future growth.
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