Boston’s brightest rooftop celebrity is about to take an extended nap. The glowing red CITGO sign over Kenmore Square will be switched off for at least six months while crews carefully dismantle, refurbish, and shift it to a new spot on the same roof.
The work will hoist the sign roughly 30 feet higher and move it about 120 feet east on the 660 Beacon Street building, which means familiar views from Fenway Park and along stretches of the Boston Marathon route are about to look a little different. City and state officials say the project is designed to protect the landmark even as the block beneath it undergoes redevelopment.
How crews will move it
Suffolk Construction is overseeing the relocation and laid out the plan last fall, including the construction of a new structural truss to hold the sign, as reported by NBC Boston. The 60-by-60-foot face will be taken apart, then reassembled on that new frame so it can sit securely at the higher elevation. Officials at a press conference said the process has been designed to limit risk and protect the sign’s historic materials while the work is underway.
Schedule and what will be dark
According to The Boston Globe, Suffolk said crews could start “as soon as this Friday,” at which point the sign will go dark for at least six months while its superstructure is removed and rebuilt. The Globe also reported that a Suffolk spokesperson expects the Citgo logo to come off this summer, with the sign’s white panels and lettering slated to be reinstalled sometime between August and October.
How we got here
The fight over the sign’s future has been simmering for years. In 2017, then-Mayor Martin J. Walsh hammered out a deal between the building owner and CITGO to keep the sign at 660 Beacon Street “for decades to come,” according to a March 15, 2017 press release from the Boston Preservation Alliance. That agreement eased long-standing worries that Kenmore Square redevelopment might erase the beloved beacon altogether.
Kenmore’s changing skyline
The relocation comes on the heels of Related Beal’s completion of the One Kenmore Square project, now home to WHOOP’s headquarters and its own rooftop sign that, from many angles, already competes with CITGO’s glow. Developers and tenants have been pushing to keep the illuminated triangle visible as taller buildings crowd the skyline, a tension Hoodline first flagged when the repositioning plan surfaced last fall. Related Beal and Hoodline have previously documented the rollout of the move.
What comes next
CITGO Petroleum Corp. is expected to share more specifics on the relocation in the near future, and Suffolk says construction will be staged to keep the dark period as short as possible, per The Boston Globe. The shift is just one piece of a broader transformation around Fenway, as Fenway Sports Group and partners advance a roughly $1.6 billion mixed-use development push near the ballpark, a backdrop that helps explain why developers are determined to maintain the sign’s visibility, according to Boston Magazine.
