East Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Designed by Leers Weinzapfel Associates, this 27,500-square-foot modern facility located on a waterfront site along the Chelsea River in East Boston, is the new Area A-7 East Boston Police Station developed in collaboration with the City of Boston Public Facilities Department with the aim to enhance community access, improve dispatch response times, and serve as a sustainable, resilient civic building.

For its design excellence, the Area A-7 East Boston Police Station has been awarded with a 2024 American Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

The City of Boston needed to replace its aging facility in its East Boston neighborhood for many years.

The building did not meet the needs of modern policing and was located far to one side of the district, not effectively servicing a large portion of the population.

For this important civic building, the City’s Public Facilities Department organized public meetings to solicit feedback, starting in schematic design and lasting until early in construction.

Those who attended were supportive of a new station.

However, during the process, national issues rose about communities and police relations culminating in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Although the City and the residents didn’t perceive any issues in East Boston at the time, the design team sought to improve opportunities for the police and the community to come together, by heightening the community aspects of the project.

Most of the building is a secure facility, but the plaza, lobby and Community Room took on a significant role in the design.

These public spaces are luminous and welcoming with views to Chelsea Creek, an urban wild along the riverfront and nearby playing fields.

A public call for artists led to an independent jury selecting an artist that intended to address these issues in her work, which she chose to place in the lobby and community room.

Her colored glass mobiles refract light into the space and depict the area’s natural and human history.

The community meetings were figured into the project timeline, however, Covid was not.

The project was officially opened by Mayor Michelle Wu in 2023.

Now complete, this section of East Boston is a community hub and integral to the neighborhood.

The area is active into the evening, especially in the warm months and the station itself has community activity most nights.

Project: Area A-7 East Boston Police Station
Architects: Leers Weinzapfel Associates
Lead Architect: Josiah Stevenson
Design Team: James E. Vogel, Del Hepler, Younsoo Yang, Josh Liebla, Jeffrey Fishbein, and Taehoon Lee
General Contractor: J&J Contractors LLC.
Client: Public Facilities Department
Photographers: Robert Benson Photography