Kaplan Construction

Kaplan Construction is a Brookline, Massachusetts, builder that’s marking its 50th anniversary in 2026, with work dating back to 1976. Based on Harvard Street, it serves Greater Boston as a general contractor, construction manager and design-build partner, with preconstruction planning on the front end. Its clients include commercial owners, healthcare providers, institutions, houses of worship and residential developers,. Kaplan built 2147 Washington Street in Roxbury’s Nubian Square, a six-story, 99,000-square-foot passive house building on a former city parking lot with 62 affordable rentals and 12 for-sale condos. It won Phius’s 2026 high-rise multifamily award.

Kaplan’s award record is worth reading closely, because it spans both the regional and national tiers of the same program. The firm took an Associated Builders and Contractors of Massachusetts Excellence in Construction Eagle Award in 2025 for the Sportsmen’s Tennis and Enrichment Center, a phased project with Bergmeyer on phase one and Utile on phase 2A, cited for maintaining constant focus through a complex sequence. A year earlier it won a national ABC Eagle Award for Castle Island Brewery in South Boston, with the jury calling the project an epitome of excellence in quality.

Phased work on occupied buildings is a recurring thread. Taking a community tennis and enrichment centre through two design teams and multiple phases is a different discipline from building on an empty site, and it lines up with a client list that runs to institutions, healthcare providers, houses of worship and commercial owners who cannot simply shut down during construction.

The company is a certified Women’s Business Enterprise, founded by Ken and Cathy Kaplan in 1976, and now led with Jane Kaplan Peck as chief operating officer – a second generation in the business. The firm also notes that it has welcomed a second generation of employees, not just owners, and treats the longevity of its core staff as a selling point. On a construction job, staff continuity is what institutional memory actually looks like.

Services are grouped as preconstruction, general contracting, construction management and design-build, with a separate lean and green practice. Preconstruction is described as the stage where the firm gets a clear picture of a client’s needs and establishes mutual trust, with the preconstruction team identifying challenges early and laying out options before they become change orders.

The firm has also been recognised among fast-growing private companies in the region, and it publishes a subcontractor route and a credits page listing its project partners. For a Greater Boston owner weighing a mid-size builder, the WBE certification, the family continuity and the ABC awards on occupied, phased projects are the three things to verify against a specific job.