City's share of White Stadium costs is now $135 million

The newly constructed White Stadium sports facility will cost the city $135 million, Mayor Michelle Wu announced last Friday at the William Devine clubhouse in Franklin Park. The new number is a substantial increase over the $50 million that city officials committed to the project last year.

Boston Unity Soccer Players, which will lease the stadium from the city and use the facility as its home turf, will cover the $190 million balance of the cost of the renovation, now estimated at $325 million, and pay for any over-runs.

Wu made the announcement during a press conference attended by city officials, Boston Public School officials, and representatives of some local businesses slated to receive contracts from the construction and operation of the stadium.

“We’re delivering the largest community benefits deal in Boston’s history,” she said, referencing $252 million over the next 15 years.

Those benefits, according to Wu, include the $190 million in private funding raised by Boston Unity Soccer Partners (BUSP) for the renovation of the stadium, which was built in 1949 as an athletic facility for Boston’s schoolchildren. She also touted what she said was $43 million in contracts going to minority and women-run business enterprises and BUSP’s commitment to pay for the maintenance of the facility, which she said would save the city $34 million over the next 15 years.

“We’re getting a world-class, best-in-class stadium for 40 percent of the construction costs,” Wu said.

Among the community benefits that Wu said BUSP would pay over 15 years are $15.4 million in rent and $9.3 million in payments to a Community Annual Fund distributed in consultation with the city to support economic, athletic, and community activity in the neighborhoods around the park.

The administration’s leasing of the stadium to a private entity has sparked controversy from its inception, when city officials met with the BUSP investors months before releasing a request for proposals for the redevelopment of the stadium in which the investors were the only respondents.

While Wu characterizes the redevelopment of the stadium as a benefit for students, opponents of the plan note that high school football games, which had taken place in the stadium continuously since 1949, will no longer be permitted during the regular season as BUSP is concerned that the players’ cleats will damage the field. 

Although the track is being renovated as part of the reconstruction, the new stands will sit high above the track, completely blocking sight lines from the stands to the lanes directly in front.

Critics of the project have also noted that game days, which are expected to be held mostly on Saturdays as often as three times a month, will place onerous restrictions on parking both inside Franklin Park as well as within a mile radius of the stadium in Roxbury, Dorchester and Jamaica Plain, making it difficult for people to hold gatherings in their homes, church and community festivals and other events that commonly take place on summer afternoons and evenings.

The group Franklin Park Defenders, which has joined the Emerald Necklace Conservancy in suing the city over the stadium plan, maintains that the city could renovate the facility for little more than $29 million were it only to serve Boston school students. The BUSP stadium plans call for 11,000 seats.

Should the Franklin Park Defenders prevail in their lawsuit, which is now before the Supreme Judicial Court but has not yet been scheduled, the reconstruction of the facility will still proceed, Wu told reporters onFriday.

“That’s actually built into the lease,” she said. “We plan for every single unlikely circumstance to protect our investments and protect the taxpayers.”

Wu said the team has been required to keep $45 million in escrow in the event they withdraw from the deal for any reason. The city would then develop the site as a student-only stadium, the mayor said.

During the press conference, Wu thanked critics of the plan who were present, including members of the Franklin Park Defenders. Also present were state Rep. Russell Holmes and city councillors Henry Santana and Ben Weber. Notably absent were other elected officials who represent the park and areas around the park, including state Sen. Liz Miranda, state Rep. Chris Worrell and city councillors Brian Worrell and Miniard Culpepper.

Garrison Trotter Neighborhood Association President Louis Elisa, who was present at the press conference, issued a statement that was critical of the rising costs of the stadium to the city.

“Luckily, no foundation has been poured, no steel has been framed, and no walls have been built,” he said in the statement. “There is still plenty of time for the City to reconsider this fatally flawed project, and instead build a much more affordable, fully-public high school stadium that meets the needs of BPS students and their families — not those of professional athletes and their investors.”

The city and BUSP have demolished the stadium’s eastern grandstand, which was damaged in a fire and has not been in use, as well as the western grandstand, which has been used by sports teams and for a city-run summer camp in recent years. 

Under the city’s plans, BUSP will lease the western grandstand for use by the soccer team while the city will build a facility for Boston Public Schools students in a new eastern grandstand. Stadium seating will surround the playing field with movable bleachers that will cover the track on game days.

Despite the lack of visibility on the ground from the grandstands under the current plans, Wu said the renovated track and stadium would be a benefit for the city.

“BPS and the community will get access to the stadium and track every single day, after school, on weekends, in every season and in the summer, even on days when there are professional matches at night,” she said.

This story was originally published in the Dorchester Reporter.