DICK's House of Sport

In a bold move that captured the attention and imagination of the city, Dick’s Sporting Goods unveiled a groundbreaking endeavor: bringing to life the first urban Dick’s House of Sport on one of the most iconic blocks in Boston. Celebrating and amplifying Boston’s identity as a legendary sports town, Dick’s Sporting Goods partnered with Bergmeyer to tackle this colossal project, balancing its unparalleled potential with formidable challenges.

Standing proud at 760 Boylston St, between the iconic Prudential Center and the Boston Marathon finish line, Dick’s House of Sport Boston is multi-layered in its attributes. First and foremost, this is the first ever urban store location for the nearly 80-year-old Dick’s Sporting Goods brand. Second, the building itself is a renovated and reinvented former 1960s-era Lord & Taylor Boston Flagship, with remarkable visibility in the cityscape of Boston’s Back Bay. By embracing much of the existing base building core infrastructure, thoughtfully reusing wherever possible, and prioritizing adaptive design over a wholesale new build, the building has been entirely reborn as a retail mecca for the next 60 years.

Boston is an iconic sports town, with ballparks, arenas, and stadiums immediately recognizable worldwide. In the same way, the new Dick’s House of Sport Boston stands as a home to celebrate athletes, comparable to those revered sports venues. The design of the new façade, while a celebration of Dick’s iconic features, was enhanced through the integration of thoughtfully contextual unique elements and materiality that feels at once new and familiar to the neighborhood. Architecturally, there’s subtle reference to the beloved Fenway Park and the old Boston Garden. Along Boylston St, color changing windows offer a nod to local sporting events, glowing green, red, blue, or yellow on any given day. At the prominent corner of Boylston St and Ring Road, windows run sidewalk to roof, forty feet tall, highlighting a multi-story climbing wall just inside... and that’s where the fun really begins.

At the heart of Dick’s House of Sport is a focus on tangible experiences. Beyond the incredible assortment of products, it is a place to become immersed in the passion of sports. Upon arrival, visitors are greeted by the ever-changing Fashion Show zone, featuring highly localized stories ranging from the Boston Marathon to the Celtics playoff run to charity partnerships. This visual dynamic moment sets a tone for the celebration of sports of every kind and at every level of participation, truly embracing the athlete in all of us. Nearby, the Co-lab zone showcases unique partnerships and exclusive product assortments. And that’s just in the first fifty feet.

Experiences abound, including the Golf Pro Shop and putting green, the House of Cleats, golf simulation bays where visitors can play rounds on courses from around the world, a multi-sport simulation cage, a specialized gear services department, and the aforementioned climbing wall. Between the immersive experiences and the expansive product selection, Dick’s House of Sport Boston offers something to keep both tourists and residents coming back for repeat visits.

While many visitors will enter from the storied Boylston Street entrance, there is also access through an outdoor plaza, where summer events and group activities are planned, and a third entry via a sky bridge from the Prudential Center Mall. It is here that you find another homage to Boston sports through an art installation Boston’s iconic sports teams — baseball, football, hockey, soccer, and basketball — and the Boston Marathon, breathing new life into a portion of the mall that suffered after Lord & Taylor’s closure. This feature acts as a beacon across a nearly 700-foot-long corridor from the Prudential Mall, activating a long under-used connection between the mall and the store.

Dick’s House of Sport Boston is truly one-of-a-kind; larger than life, and perfectly suited for a city as sports centric as Boston. Bringing a store of this scale to life happens only one way, through collaboration with a remarkably talented client team, design team, contractor team, and landlord. As a Design Collaborative, Bergmeyer recognizes the honor and privilege of working on such a path-breaking project, in our hometown, with an incredible team, in a truly illustrious setting. Dick’s House of Sport Boston is a legend in the making, in a legendary city of sport.