JC&A is proud to be part of this incredible project for Global Partners’ new Newton HQ, alongside Elkus Manfredi and WB Engineers.
The fuel supplier and retail operator Global Partners spent two years scouring Boston’s western suburbs for new office space, looking for a building that would provide it extra space to add employees and offer newer amenities that its old space couldn’t.
A real estate market with high vacancy rates would typically offer more choices than usual. But Global Partners (NYSE: GLP) insisted on a high-end building and a location with public transit access. Max Slifka, the company’s senior vice president for real estate, estimates he toured every building in that suburban area that had at least 100,000 square feet it was looking for.
Ultimately, Global Partners (NYSE: GLP) found the right spot: 275 Grove St. in Newton, next to the MBTA Green Line’s Riverside station and part of a tenant group that also includes the life sciences company Parexel and the marketing firm Informa TechTarget.
Global Partners signed a 12-year lease last year for a three-story, 125,000-square-foot space. It was also confident enough in the location, Slifka said, that it bought a 20% equity stake in the building itself. It’s majority-owned by Greatland Realty Partners in a joint venture with Barings.
Global Partners, known for its Alltown Fresh, XtraMart and other store brands, ranked 234th in the most recent Fortune 500 rankings, with $18.56 billion in revenue in 2025 and a market capitalization of roughly $1.7 billion. It held a grand opening ceremony for its new headquarters on Monday.
“People tend to collaborate far better in person, and they’re very happy to do it when they have a first-class space,” Slifka said. “We want to make sure that if people are spending time in the office, it’s a place where they can be proud of.”
The firm, which also owns, leases or supplies gas stations across much of the country, spent decades at Waltham’s Watermill Center. It had a 72,000-square-foot lease that left it pinched for space.
“We reached a point in the last few years where we were really bursting at the seams,” Slifka said.
Global Partners had 500 employees working from its old headquarters but has room today for 650. The demand for growth comes from a real estate division that’s a partner with the Davis Cos. in a huge mixed-use development planned on an old oil tank farm in Everett. Its data analytics team has also grown, supplying information to its vast network on gasoline pricing or retail customers.
Once the firm landed on the Newton site, Slifka said it spent as much time designing the new space as crews spent building it. For a company with a four-day-a-week office requirement, providing spaces for impromptu meetings and a mix of offices and open work stations was a priority.
There’s a central staircase that combines the three floors, 38 conference rooms and three dedicated collaboration spaces. A cafe on each floor feeds employees and offers its retail team a chance to test the popularity of new store items.
We look at it like a campus,” Slifka said, “and we’re recruiting the best talent.”
https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2026/09/14/retailer-opens-125-000-square-foot-newton-office.html
