Life sciences real estate development company IQHQ, along with local co-developer Meredith Management, has announced the start of construction on the $1 billion Fenway Center Development. The project will include a state-of-the-art life science campus that will anchor a growing life science district between Kenmore Square and the Longwood Medical and Academic Area.

The project will be situated on an air rights deck over the Massachusetts Turnpike connecting the Beacon Street and Brookline Avenue bridges at the western gateway to Boston and it will improve pedestrian connections between the thriving Longwood Medical Area and the historic Audubon Circle, Fenway, Kenmore Square, Boston University and Back Bay neighborhoods. Once completed, Fenway Center will include a new two-tower, interconnected life science campus with immediate access to public transportation and world-class amenities.

The project design, which was approved by the City of Boston last year, features more than 960,000 square-feet of state-of-the-art life-science buildings with approximately 10,000 square-feet of ground floor retail along Brookline Avenue and Beacon Street, along with an automated garage that will be accessible from both buildings. Fenway Center will also feature approximately 1.6 acres of landscaped green space that will be called Life Science Park: A Monument to Life Sciences and Public Health. The space will include a large plaza and a roughly 700-foot-long public pedestrian walkway.