140 Clarendon Receives 2025 Mayor Thomas M. Menino Legacy Award

Preservation Mass is pleased to announce that 140 Clarendon in Boston is the recipient of a 2025 Mayor Thomas M. Menino Legacy Award.

140 Clarendon Street is a historic building located in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The 13-story brick-faced, steel-frame building was designed by George F. Shepard and Frederic Stearns and built in 1929 as the home of the YWCA (now YW), an organization at the forefront of providing affordable housing and career counsel for young women who came to the city for work. The 13-story building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a local landmark at Clarendon and Stuart Street.

In 2021, YW Boston and its investment partners sold the building to Beacon Communities and Mount Vernon Company. Beacon Communities agreed to renovate the entire property, preserve the building exterior and its historic interior spaces, and create 210 affordable and transitional apartment units. Of the 210 apartments, 111 are designated for residents transitioning from unhoused to permanent housing. The remaining 99 affordable apartments are reserved for income-eligible households. Beacon Communities partnered with the Pine Street Inn to staff and manage the transitional units. These residents have around the clock support services from Pine Street staff to help them move from the streets and shelters to permanent supported housing with wrap-around case management services. The restoration was complete in 2024.

Among the achievements of the 140 Clarendon team was keeping all the existing residential tenants housed in the building while rebuilding every tenant unit to meet current code, safety, and living standards. The team also managed to keep all the building’s existing art, cultural, educational, and commercial tenants in place. These include Boston’s Lyric Theater, the city’s Snowden School, the YW headquarters office, a dry cleaner, and a restaurant.