Boston’s White Stadium
Cost overruns and a persistent local opposition led to allusions to the ill-fated Boston 2024 Olympics plan Wednesday when Boston Mayor Michelle Wu took questions about the city's plan to renovate White Stadium in Franklin Park and make it the home for a National Women's Soccer League team.
The city and Boston Unity Soccer Partners LLC, a for-profit company, say the new stadium and complex would host the new BOS Nation FC, provide a state-of-the-art facility for Boston Public School students to use as their home turf and still be available for community use. BPS, which operates the existing stadium, cannot afford to renovate it alone, the city has said.
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The Boston Globe reported last week that the total cost of the project had about doubled to nearly $200 million, with the city's estimated share of the construction costs rising from $50 million to $91 million. And while the NWSL expansion team expects to start play in 2026, a trial scheduled for March in a lawsuit lodged by local opponents is now threatening that timeline.
In a GBH Radio appearance Wednesday, the mayor acknowledged the jump in estimated project costs and said that both the city and the soccer team share the responsibility for cost overruns. And she defended the project as co-host Jim Braude prodded her about considering alternatives, particularly as the Legislature has now opened the door to a professional soccer stadium in Everett.
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"The costs of renovating something that has been falling apart for 40 years are significant … Each side is responsible for what happens with costs on either side, and I will share that the increase in costs has happened on both sides, on the city and the team. And we're working towards the final lease details and I think that will become clear," Wu said.
Braude noted Wu's concerns as a city councilor about the failed Boston 2024 plan and the potential for cost overruns to ultimately come at the expense of other city spending. He asked the mayor if she would guarantee that city taxpayers would not be on the hook for any more of the project costs if the city's share rises again to more than $91 million, similar to a question he said he asked leading Olympics booster John Fish years ago.
"We are going to pay for our half of the stadium, no matter what it costs," Wu said. "But we're about to begin construction, and we feel that the estimates that we have are going to be in the ballpark of what is needed, and that this overall is going to be a deal that is worth it for generations to come for our city."
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Residents and parks advocates who oppose the plan for the new White Stadium have banded together as the Franklin Park Defenders citizens group to sue the city and team in Superior Court, and a judge recently set a March 18, 2025 date for a trial. The organization hammered Wu soon after her radio appearance Wednesday.
"Boston taxpayers are being asked to write a blank check for the benefit of BOS Nation's millionaire investors, with no limit to how much this bloated project could ultimately cost us. The rush to complete this massive project on the soccer team's forced timeline will certainly lead to additional cost overruns," Dorchester resident Jessica Spruill said in a statement. "There is still time for Mayor Wu to rethink this mistake and reconsider the many reasonable alternatives."
Without addressing the group specifically, Wu responded to the argument from some that the city should instead spend about $20 million to renovate the existing White Stadium to be a modest high school facility.
"This was built in 1949. So at $8 [million] to $20 million, sure we could repaint some things, sure we could make some cosmetic changes," the mayor said. "But it would not allow us to really take things to the next level."
