FIVE YEARS AGO, the Filene’s block in downtown Boston and the old Ferdinand furniture store in Roxbury’s Dudley Square were both holes in the ground. They’re now both rounding into shape. The building that once housed the Filene’s department store opened to its first office tenants earlier this year. The Ferdinand, recently renamed after the late Boston City Councilor Bruce Bolling, has gone from a bombed-out-looking facade covered in blue plywood to a gleaming new municipal office building.
Filene’s and the Ferdinand are the two best buildings Boston developers produced in 2014, and they’re special for similar reasons. They are good-looking developments on their own, but they really matter because of what each means for the neighborhood around it.
