White Stadium renovation to proceed
Suffolk judge rejects injunction sought by conservancy
Plans to overhaul White Stadium in Franklin Park through a partnership between the city and a new professional women’s soccer team cleared a legal hurdle Friday as a judge denied a local environmental group’s attempt to halt the project.
Suffolk Superior Court judge Sarah Weyland Ellis rejected a preliminary injunction sought by the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, a nonprofit that acts as a steward of the historic Franklin Park. The stadium, built in the 1940s, is designated for use by Boston Public Schools students and the general public, but has been in significant disrepair for decades.
The conservancy group, along with more than 20 residents opposing the redevelopment, had filed its lawsuit last month against the city of Boston, Mayor Michelle Wu, Boston Unity Soccer Partners, and others involved in the project. They argued that the city had rushed the plan through the approval process and it would illegally privatize the land by housing a professional sports team, therefore cutting into the public’s access to Franklin Park.
In her ruling, Ellis wrote that pausing the project at its current stage would likely kill it, as the soccer group was the only respondent to the city’s request for proposals to overhaul White Stadium. This would leave the facility “in a state of deterioration and partial use” and the city “may lose the opportunity to have its own professional women’s soccer team,” Ellis wrote.
“Renovating a 75-year-old, 10,000 seat, outdoor stadium with necessary structural and system upgrades to bring it into compliance with building and safety codes is expensive. … Even if the Defendants ultimately prevailed and the Proposed Project could proceed, any delay could result in rising costs associated with the Proposed Project, reducing the buying power of the $50 million the City has been allocated to the renovation,” she wrote.
Boston Unity Soccer Partners, which received approval from the National Women’s Soccer League to establish the league’s 15th team in Boston, intends to spend more than $50 million on the stadium renovation, in addition to $50 million the city would contribute, according to court records. Boston Globe CEO Linda Henry is an investor in Boston Unity Soccer Partners.
The refurbished stadium would be for the partial use of Boston Public Schools students and the community, as well as house the new professional women’s soccer team.
Wu praised the judge’s ruling Friday while calling the lawsuit a “frivolous” attempt to stop the city’s “generational investment in White Stadium and Franklin Park.”
“For decades, Boston student athletes and community members have watched plans for revitalizing this historic facility come and go without tangible progress,” Wu said in a statement provided to the Globe.
“Now, for the first time since the stadium’s opening, the City has a committed partnership to invest in and sustain the improvements that our students, park lovers, and neighbors deserve —
while dramatically expanding the hours of usage for BPS sports and community events.”
Franklin Park area residents who signed onto the lawsuit opposing the stadium renovation said their concerns about the project’s impact on the neighborhoods surrounding the park have been ignored.
“Black and brown residents are not being heard and our voices and concerns are being dismissed as frivolous,” Renee Stacy Welch, a plaintiff and community leader from Jamaica Plain, said in a statement. “This decision bulldozes my community’s rights to public land.”
Louis Elisa of the GarrisonTrotter Neighborhood Association in Roxbury said in a statement that the judge’s ruling is similar to the US Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision, “wherein our rights as black citizens are not worthy of serious consideration or respect.”
“Nothing has changed in Boston,” Elisa said.
Details of the project are still being decided, but the initial proposal calls for a complete overhaul of the stadium, along with new professional locker rooms, corporate suites, commercial kitchens and concessions spaces, and a media room.
The plan also includes turning 60,000 square feet of land outside the stadium, known as “The Grove,” into an event space that could include an entry plaza, outdoor seating, and accommodations for food and drink vendors.
The Emerald Necklace Conservancy said in a statement Friday evening that it would be interested in “a more affordable project,” one that does not include housing a professional sports team or building “luxury boxes, beer gardens, jumbotrons, and merchandise stores.”
Karen Mauney-Brodek, president of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, urged the city in the statement to abandon the project, which she described as “a flawed privatization scheme that is not supported by a single neighborhood association.
“Instead, support the stadium and the park with the $50 million in taxpayer funds they’ve already identified,” MauneyBrodek said. “We will continue to stand up for the students of Boston, who deserve a state-ofthe-art public White Stadium and should not have to yield to the demands of for-profit investors to get it.”
A survey by the Franklin Park Coalition nonprofit found that a majority of area residents either enthusiastically or cautiously support the renovation project.
In a statement following Friday’s court ruling, Boston Unity Soccer Partners said it has been “heartened by the positive feedback” and are ready to move forward with the project.
“We are grateful that today’s ruling demonstrates the court’s understanding that the communities around Franklin Park and
White Stadium should not have to wait any longer for the decades of neglect and underuse to be addressed,” the statement said.