Business
The company explored leasing space elsewhere or staying put on its South Boston campus but opted instead for a brand-new building next door.
Gillette World Shaving Headquarters located at 1 Gillette Park in Boston.
athan Klima for The Boston Globe
The future of the famed Gillette World Shaving Headquarters is finally coming into focus.
After Procter & Gamble wrestled with where to place the new headquarters as it prepares to shift the manufacturing facility along the Fort Point Channel to Andover, the company announced Tuesday that the corporate headquarters isn’t going far. It will remain based in South Boston, and the company will invest $1 billion to build a new headquarters next door.
P&G Gillette said it plans to purchase neighboring 232 A St. in South Boston as the future home of its Grooming Headquarters and Technical Innovation Center.
Breakthrough Properties, a joint venture of Tishman Speyer and Bellco Capital, owns the site of the proposed new headquarters. The city previously permitted it for a 324,315-square-foot research and development facility with ground-floor retail.
Illustration courtesy of P&G Gillette
“Transforming our grooming business for the future required that we think creatively about every aspect of our operations,” said Gary Coombe, CEO of P&G Gillette, in a statement. “After a comprehensive search, we are pleased to have found a location that continues our longstanding history in this community.”
Gillette has used the South Boston site for product manufacturing for over 100 years. The global company P&G acquired Gillette in 2005.
The company first announced its plans to relocate Gillette’s headquarters in 2023, following a comprehensive site assessment.
As part of this phased transition, blade and razor manufacturing will move from South Boston to Andover beginning this year, along with hundreds of employees. The company broke ground on that facility in April.
The expanded, 200,000-square-foot Andover facility will support blade and razor production, packaging operations, shave-prep manufacturing, and direct-to-consumer fulfillment.
The company is also in the midst of redeveloping its current 31-acre South Boston campus from manufacturing and commercial space to residential, retail, lab, and office spaces.
“Gillette has been part of Massachusetts’ story for more than a century, and this nearly $1 billion investment in a new global headquarters and technical innovation center in South Boston is a powerful vote of confidence in our state,” Gov. Maura Healey.
She continued, “Massachusetts offers the talent, research ecosystem, and innovation environment that global companies need to grow and compete.”
Beth Treffeisen is a general assignment reporter for Boston.com, focusing on local news, crime, and business in the New England region.
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