From a sprawling industrial site at the edge of the South End, the Boston Flower Exchange has supplied generations of New Englanders with roses for Valentine’s Day, lilies for Easter, bouquets for weddings, and cut flowers for countless other occasions.
Now, the century-old wholesale supplier could fall to the wave of gentrification coursing through the neighborhood. A mysterious bidder has offered $35 million for the private company’s five-acre property, leaving vendors who have hawked flowers from inside the Albany Street warehouse for decades worried about being uprooted.
“We are now at a crossroads,” the Flower Exchange’s board of directors said in a letter to its shareholders disclosing the purchase offer. “The Exchange continues to be an important and historical part of the flower business in New England. It is currently a profitable business . . . . However, we observe that Albany Street is undergoing a real estate boom.”
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