One Post Office Square renovation highlights a changing Financial District

Welcome back to Critical Mass., in which Curbed Boston covers all the major development news in the region every week. This truncated New Years version includes Boston’s changing Financial District and the city’s construction pace in 2019—plus a look at the projects to follow in 2020. Come along.

The $300 million renovation of One Post Office Square typifies the route that landlords in Boston’s Financial District have decided to travel: One away from hosting and trying to attract, well, financial firms and toward drawing technology companies instead.

Meanwhile, Boston officials last year approved a scorching $5.6 billion in new development. That figure included relatively little affordable housing, however—so much so that the city might be at a “crisis point” in terms of pushing lower-income residents out.

Now to some more positive news, at least in the longer-term: The Green Line’s Lechmere Station will close this spring until the following spring—one of the biggest mass transit changes riders will experience in 2020—so that it can be moved to accommodate the T route’s extension through Somerville.

Finally, these are the 21 projects to follow this year if you want to understand the Boston area’s built environment now and in the future.