Soccer Investor’s Plan for White Stadium Still Lacks Key State Approvals, Faces March 2025 Trial in Superior Court
BOSTON — As a group of private sports investors announces the name of their for-profit professional women’s soccer team today, local and national opposition to the team’s plans to take over White Stadium in Boston’s historic Franklin Park continues. The plan by the team and the City of Boston to build a private sports and entertainment complex in Franklin Park still lacks multiple required state approvals, and an ongoing legal challenge to the stadium plan is scheduled for trial in March 2025.
This summer, the Emerald Necklace Conservancy and the Garrison Trotter Neighborhood Association sent a letter to several state agencies raising serious concerns that the stadium proponents are fast-tracking a $100 million dollar, 11,000 seat professional sports and entertainment complex without following state environmental laws.
“An 11,000 seat private sports and entertainment complex does not belong in a public park, and the team still has no plan to address the significant environmental impact this major development project would have. That’s why we’re asking state officials to step in to provide legally-required environmental review, and prevent an environmental injustice in Boston’s largest public park,” said Egleston Square resident Renee Stacy Welch, a member of the Franklin Park Defenders citizens group that opposes the project. “The plan to tear down White Stadium and rebuild it as a private sports and entertainment complex is fatally flawed, and a new team name won’t change that. Franklin Park and surrounding communities can’t handle the thousands of new car trips a professional soccer stadium would generate, and restrictions on public access to Franklin Park would hurt our community’s ability to enjoy the park. City and team officials are even planning to cut down as many as 140 trees in Franklin Park!”
Background
The City of Boston and a group of private sports investors, Boston Unity Soccer Partners LLC, are preparing to demolish White Stadium in Boston’s historic Franklin Park this fall, in order to begin constructing a massive private sports and entertainment complex that would house the new NWSL team, BOS Nation Football Club.
The proposal would grant the rights to a 30-year lease to a professional for-profit sports team; build dedicated private facilities and other uses like offices, luxury boxes, restaurants and shops; and displace Boston Public School (BPS) students and the general public from the stadium and effectively much of the rest of the park for 20 games and 20 practices on the majority of Fridays and Saturdays from March-November. The proposal would displace BPS football teams from the stadium for their entire regular season and limit the availability of one of the most-used free public areas of Franklin Park for music and cultural festivals, basketball and tennis games, and cross country running meets.
Local residents and parks advocates, many who are members of the Franklin Park Defenders citizens group that is suing the proponents of the project in State Superior Court, have highlighted several major issues with the proposed project, including:
The lack of an adequate transportation plan for 11,000+ game and concert attendees, who will likely generate more than 4,000 new vehicle trips and create enormous traffic gridlock and pollution in the neighborhoods around Franklin Park.
Gameday neighborhood parking restrictions that will prevent local residents from hosting backyard BBQs or birthday parties without applying for a city event permit.
Limits to public access that would restrict the availability of one of the most-used free public areas of Franklin Park for music and cultural festivals, basketball and tennis games, and cross-country running meets.
A flawed public process that has seen the City of Boston-backed project rubber-stamped by a series of mayoral-appointed city boards, without any required independent environmental review by state agencies.
While White Stadium is almost a mile from the nearest train station, proponents claim that 40 percent of fans will travel to the stadium via public transportation, and most others will drive to as-yet-unidentified remote parking lots and take large tour buses to the stadium. Proponents claim that their transportation plan will work by comparing it to Fenway Park, which is within a third of a mile of a T station and the commuter rail. But even at transit-rich Fenway, barely 23% of attendees use transit, and nearly two-thirds drive or take Uber or Lyft. Properly analyzed, it is likely that game and concert days will result in more than 4,000 new vehicle trips, triggering the need for state environmental reviews that have not occurred.
In addition, the proponents of the professional sports and entertainment complex want to require neighborhood parking permits to park on nearby streets on game and concert days. As a result, residents will be unable to host visitors for a backyard BBQ or a child’s birthday party, because only permanent residents will be able to park in the neighborhood without applying for a special event permit from the city.
The massive expansion of White Stadium would reduce public access to green space in the center of several of Boston’s environmental justice neighborhoods, which already suffer from high rates of asthma and other respiratory illnesses.
The City of Boston has already identified $50 million in taxpayer funds to be used for their portion of the White Stadium project. That is enough to complete a state-of-the art public stadium, without limiting public access or disrupting our park and surrounding neighborhoods. In 2013, the last time renovating White Stadium was seriously studied, the project had a $20 million price tag, which included upgrading the stadium, additional parking, and new basketball courts.
There are numerous examples of high school and even college sports stadiums being built or renovated for far less than $50 million. Cawley Stadium in Lowell received an $8 million renovation this year, including a new turf field; an athletic training center with a weight room, locker rooms, coaches/meeting room, concession stand and bathroom facility; and an expanded track. In Boston, Daly Field in Brighton was renovated for $13.5 million in 2016, including a new field house, 6 tennis courts, a track, and synthetic turf fields used for soccer, lacrosse, softball, field hockey, and football.
White Stadium, an open space for public recreation and public school sporting events, has been held in trust for over 74 years for the beneficiaries of the White Fund Trust — the residents of Boston. A citizens lawsuit scheduled for trial in March 2025 alleges that the proposed redevelopment of White Stadium by Boston Unity Soccer Partners, LLC would violate Article 97, of the Massachusetts constitution by transferring public trust land to private use, charging that “it would fundamentally alter the nature and feel of a significant portion of Franklin Park during the majority of fair weather weekends each year.”
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