For Immediate Release
December 23, 2025
Contact: Carlen Singmaster, Emerald Necklace Conservancy, csingmaster@emeraldnecklace.org, 617-522-2700
Massive Private Sports and Entertainment Complex in Franklin Park Would Cost At Least $200 Million; Would Destroy Acres of Public Parkland & 145 Trees
BOSTON — After months of private negotiations, city officials and the National Women’s Soccer League’s BOS Nation Football Club have signed a 321-page lease agreement, 52-page stadium usage agreement, and other documents that would allow the privatization of acres of Boston’s historic Franklin Park, pending the outcome of an ongoing legal case. The City and team are planning to spend at least $200 million to tear down White Stadium in Boston’s historic Franklin Park and build a massive private sports and concert complex in its place.
“For months, city officials and BOS Nation’s wealthy investors hid the details of their secret negotiations from the public. Now that they’ve finally signed a lease for the privatization of White Stadium, it’s clearer than ever: this is a terrible deal for Boston,” said Egleston Square resident Renee Stacey Welch. “It’s a massive giveaway of taxpayer dollars to private investors that puts Boston on the hook for future cost overruns, all for an oversized project that would forever damage Franklin Park. No wonder they’re dumping the news the day before Christmas Eve – they must hope that Boston residents will be too busy to pay attention to this dreadful backroom deal.”
“In return for a blank check to BOS Nation’s investors, Franklin Park would lose acres of public parkland, 145 trees in the park would be cut down, and BPS football teams would be evicted from their own stadium during the entire regular season,” said Jamaica Plain resident Melissa Hamel. “Neighbors in JP, Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan would be subjected to intense traffic congestion and disruption on dozens of game and concert days, and the public would have limited access to the supposedly-public stadium. None of this is necessary — renovating White Stadium as a high-quality public high school stadium, and expanding the facility’s public hours, would cost far less and avoid the many serious problems with the soccer team’s privatization scheme.”
“Boston residents, park users, and the BPS community deserve a more affordable public renovation of White Stadium, rather than a giveaway of precious city resources. We believe there are other ways to invest in Franklin Park and White Stadium that would receive the full support of park users, neighborhood organizations, and community leaders,” said Emerald Necklace Conservancy President Karen Mauney-Brodek. “The city and team should not move forward with cutting down 145 irreplaceable trees in Franklin Park, and demolishing White Stadium, before they even know how much the project will ultimately cost. That’s not environmental justice.”
Members of the Franklin Park Defenders, a group of local residents and parks advocates who oppose the pro soccer proposal for White Stadium, are working to review the numerous documents released by the city today, and immediately identified multiple serious flaws in the lease agreement. These obvious problems are in addition to the many fundamental flaws with the proposed project, including its negative impact on Franklin Park and surrounding neighborhoods:
• · The lease offers a blank check from Boston taxpayers for cost overruns: Boston already plans to spend $91 million in taxpayer funds on the White Stadium project, and the lease would make city taxpayers responsible for any cost overruns on the public-funded portion of the project, which includes numerous features that are more appropriate for a professional sports venue than for a high school sports stadium. Mayor Wu admitted that the city wouldn’t even have a final cost estimate for the project until late spring 2025, months after the city plans to cut down 145 trees and demolish the existing stadium.
· The lease exempts BOS Nation from paying property taxes: The private side of the stadium development — which is expected to bring in tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue for BOS Nation’s wealthy investors from ticket sales, sponsorships, and year-round restaurant and concession sales — would not be subject to local property taxes. Instead, the city and BOS Nation would negotiate a “payment-in-lieu-of-taxes” (PILOT) agreement at a later date, for an undetermined amount of money.
· The lease gives BOS Nation the vast majority of revenue from naming rights, in-stadium advertising, and concessions, rather than generating substantial revenue for community needs: While the stadium would be public-owned, BOS Nation’s private investors would receive 90 percent of revenues from field naming rights and in-stadium advertising, with Boston receiving only 10 percent. The private investors would receive 97 percent of revenue from stadium concessions, with Boston receiving only 3 percent.
· The lease allows new motor vehicle traffic in Franklin Park: The lease would allow BOS Nation to use Franklin Park footpaths as access roads for motor vehicle traffic to access restaurants and shops the team plans to build and operate at the stadium complex – not just on game and concert days, but 12 months a year.
· The project’s transportation plan would require members of the public to use an app and make a reservation in order to visit Franklin Park on game and concert days: Even when going to a playground, holding a picnic, or visiting the Zoo, members of the public would face serious obstacles to visitingc the public park on dozens of game and concert days, from traffic congestion and parking restrictions to the presence of private security and strict app-based reservation requirements.
· The lease commits the city to finishing major elements of the project by the team’s highly-ambitious March 2026 deadline: This accelerated construction timeline is highly likely to lead to additional (and unnecessary) cost overruns – which city taxpayers will be fully on the hook for. Boston already plans to spend $91 million in taxpayer funds on the White Stadium project, and the lease would make city taxpayers responsible for any cost overruns on the public-funded portion of the project, which includes numerous features that are more appropriate for a professional sports venue than for a high school sports stadium. Mayor Wu admitted that the city wouldn’t even have a final cost estimate for the project until late spring 2025, months after the city plans to cut down 145 trees and demolish the existing stadium.
• The lease exempts BOS Nation from paying property taxes: The private side of the stadium development — which is expected to bring in tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue for BOS Nation’s wealthy investors from ticket sales, sponsorships, and year-round restaurant and concession sales — would not be subject to local property taxes. Instead, the city and BOS Nation would negotiate a “payment-in-lieu-of-taxes” (PILOT) agreement at a later date, for an undetermined amount of money.
• The lease gives BOS Nation the vast majority of revenue from naming rights, in-stadium advertising, and concessions, rather than generating substantial revenue for community needs: While the stadium would be public-owned, BOS Nation’s private investors would receive 90 percent of revenues from field naming rights and in-stadium advertising, with Boston receiving only 10 percent. The private investors would receive 97 percent of revenue from stadium concessions, with Boston receiving only 3 percent.
• The lease allows new motor vehicle traffic in Franklin Park: The lease would allow BOS Nation to use Franklin Park footpaths as access roads for motor vehicle traffic to access restaurants and shops the team plans to build and operate at the stadium complex – not just on game and concert days, but 12 months a year.
• The project’s transportation plan would require members of the public to use an app and make a reservation in order to visit Franklin Park on game and concert days: Even when going to a playground, holding a picnic, or visiting the Zoo, members of the public would face serious obstacles to visitingc the public park on dozens of game and concert days, from traffic congestion and parking restrictions to the presence of private security and strict app-based reservation requirements.
• The lease commits the city to finishing major elements of the project by the team’s highly-ambitious March 2026 deadline: This accelerated construction timeline is highly likely to lead to additional (and unnecessary) cost overruns – which city taxpayers will be fully on the hook for.
“Boston residents deserve reasonable time to read and understand the hundreds of pages of documents released today — before bulldozers rip down 145 trees and pave over acres of historic parkland. We shouldn’t have to take time away from our families over the holidays to dig through the details of the team’s sweetheart deal,” said Dorchester resident Jessica Spruill. “We deserve a true public debate about whether this plan makes sense, or whether there are better alternatives — before taxpayers are asked to put up $91 million and cover cost overruns for a professional sports complex that will primarily benefit private investors and would irreparably damage Boston’s largest public park.”
The plan by BOS Nation and the City of Boston includes the demolition of 95% of White Stadium to build a new for-profit professional sports and concert venue that is twice the size of the existing public school sports stadium. The play would tear down 145 trees and pave over acres of historic public parkland in the process.
BOS Nation aims to play games in the newly-built 11,000-seat stadium by March 2026. The team has yet to even begin demolition of the existing stadium, after months of delays due to lack of planning and community opposition. The project still has no realistic transportation plan, no approval to cut down 145 trees in Franklin Park, no fair process for awarding contracts to women and minority-owned community business, and numerous other unanswered questions.
In December, a state Superior Court judge awarded a group of citizen plaintiffs more time to gather evidence in their lawsuit against the project, as the City and team did not provide all required documentation, including a signed lease agreement, in the previously allotted time frame. The lawsuit alleges that the proposed project would violate the Massachusetts Constitution by transferring public trust land to private use. A trial in the lawsuit is scheduled for March 18, 2025.
Also in December, news broke that the cost of the project has ballooned, with Boston taxpayers now on the hook for $91 million and the total cost rising to at least $200 million, more than double the original estimate. The team also faced widespread disapproval in response to the botched rollout of its name and branding campaign, and has since indicated it is reconsidering the team name.
###
Background
The City of Boston and BOS Nation FC are preparing to demolish White Stadium in Boston’s historic Franklin Park, in order to begin constructing a massive private sports and entertainment complex that would house the new National Women’s Soccer League team.
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.
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:
· 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.
· 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.
· Gameday neighborhood parking restrictions would prevent local residents from hosting backyard BBQs or birthday parties without applying for a city event permit.
· The massive new stadium complex 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.
· A flawed public process 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.
The City of Boston has already identified $91 million in taxpayer funds to be used for their portion of the White Stadium project. That is more than 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 $91 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.”
Learn more at franklinparkdefenders.com.
Comments