Old Boston Globe headquarters on its way to rivaling Kendall Square

The redevelopment of the former Boston Globe headquarters off Morrissey Boulevard in Dorchester—seen here in the Oscar-winning film Spotlight—won a key endorsement in late July from the Boston Zoning Board of Appeal.

The plans from developer Nordblom envision creating a kind of Valhalla of tech-centric office space, complete with wide-open interiors and tons of natural light.

Dubbed the Beat, the redeveloped newspaper site, with its 700,000-square-foot building, would be actively positioned to rival Cambridge’s Kendall Square tech hub, where vacancies are scarce and asking rents relatively high.

Nordblom has pointed out not only the potential for hundreds of thousands of square feet of available tech-centric space, but the fact the 135 Morrissey Boulevard site is—like Kendall—off the Red Line as well as near various highways and byways.

Even with the zoning board’s approval, it’s not clear which companies are going in the Beat or when the Beat will be finished. But the approval will make it easier to market the looming redevelopment to possible tenants.

As for the Globe, the newspaper vacated its home of nearly six decades in June 2017 for a new headquarters on State Street in downtown Boston. The Dot site has been empty since.

• Zoning board approves turning old Globe plant into a high-tech R&D center [Dot News]
• Spotlight in Boston: Where the Best Picture winner was filmed [Curbed Boston]
• Boston Globe’s former headquarters would become office complex with brewery [Curbed Boston]