Despite White Stadium Demolition, A New State-of-the-Art, Fully-Public Stadium Can Still Be Built for $64.6 Million — Much Less Than $200 Million+ Pro Soccer Project

Contact: Carlen Singmaster, 617-960-6537, csingmaster@emeraldnecklace.org

New Design Concept Envisions Gold Standard High School Stadium, Without Professional Soccer Team, in Franklin Park

BOSTON — The City of Boston can still build a state-of-the-art new high school stadium in Franklin Park for $64.6 million, even after the demolition of the old White Stadium. That’s significantly less money than the city is planning to spend on just its half of a $200 million-plus professional soccer stadium for Boston Legacy Football Club.

On Tuesday, the Emerald Necklace Conservancy released a new, enhanced alternative conceptual design for a fully-public White Stadium, without the costly involvement of the soccer team. The design, developed by architectural design practice Landing Studio based on significant community input, would be a ‘gold standard’ 5,000-seat high school stadium, featuring:

• $5.9 million in track and field improvements, including a new grass football/soccer field, a new Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association-compliant 8-lane track, a field sports and throwing area, new irrigation, goal posts, fencing, high mast lighting, and LED scoreboard;

• A $39.6 million rebuilt West Grandstand that preserves the single remaining clamshell wall and respects the existing height of White Stadium, while adding one-story wings to house BPS and community programming, including a BPS gym and locker rooms, a sports medicine suite, BPS Athletics office and equipment storage space, concessions, a press box, public restrooms, and a multipurpose room for BPS and community use;

• A $9 million new East Grandstand with a significantly lower height to reduce costs and help the stadium blend with the park, while adding a new one-story building to house additional public restrooms, another multipurpose room for BPS and community use, and groundskeeping facility maintenance spaces; and

• $10.1 million in site improvements, including drainage infrastructure improvements, new paths and pedestrian lighting, new bioretention areas and groundcover plantings, restoration of disturbed lawn areas, and significant new tree plantings.

A detailed cost estimate conducted by Vermeulens, Inc. found that the new public high school stadium design could be built for $64.6 million, including contingencies for any potential cost overruns.

At a Tuesday morning press conference, speakers from the Emerald Necklace Conservancy and the Franklin Park Defenders community group described the potential for Boston to build a more affordable, fully-public White Stadium that avoids the many flaws of the Boston Legacy proposal.

“This design is a gold-standard, state-of-the-art high school stadium that includes everything that the BPS Athletics Department has requested for BPS students, and everything that surrounding communities have been asking for from a new stadium in Franklin Park,” said Karen Mauney-Brodek, President of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy. “Boston can build this state-of-the-art public facility for $64.6 million — significantly less money than the city is planning to spend on just its half of the proposed Boston Legacy stadium, which has not begun construction. Despite the demolition of the old White Stadium, there is still a clear path forward for an alternative fully-public stadium that avoids the high cost and many flaws of a professional sports venue in Franklin Park. We’re excited to share all the details of this design and cost estimate for the public to evaluate.”

In addition to the significantly lower cost, this alternative concept for White Stadium has many advantages over the Boston Legacy FC proposal:

• It would allow for BPS students and the public to use the renovated stadium 365 days a year, rather than being displaced on prime weekend days, totaling 40 or more warm-weather game days, practice days, and concert and event dates each year.

• It would allow for BPS football teams to continue to use the field for games and practices during their entire season, rather than displacing them until the end of the overlapping NWSL season.

• It creates new parkland rather than building over acres of existing open space.

• Without the need to accommodate 11,000 spectators for professional soccer games, it would avoid the traffic gridlock and disruption that city and team officials still have not figured out how to address.

• Without being driven by the needs and requirements of private soccer investors and the NWSL, the stadium could be truly designed around the needs of BPS students and the surrounding communities.

• A fully public stadium would avoid the constitutional issues regarding the privatization of public land that are at the root of an ongoing lawsuit against the public-private development project.

“This design is right-sized and focused exclusively on the needs of BPS student-athletes and the Boston community,” said Egleston Square resident Renee Stacey Welsh, a member of the Franklin Park Defenders community group. “It includes a state-of-the-art new field and 8-lane track, high-quality facilities for BPS athletics, and public amenities like restrooms, concessions, and multi-purpose meeting space. What it doesn’t include is luxury boxes, a beer garden, and thousands of unnecessary bucket seats to accommodate professional soccer game and concert attendees. And it wouldn’t displace public school kids from their own stadium or generate enormous negative impacts on surrounding communities.”

“This updated design is a relief: open, inviting, exciting, and much more in-line with the legacy of Franklin Park,” said Priscilla Andrade, a Franklin Park abutter, BPS parent, and local small business owner. “It fosters interaction within the community and offers the opportunity to put BPS Athletics front & center instead of sidelined by the needs of the national league. The Boston Legacy design is visually & physically cumbersome, cutting off engagement with park users and the abutting community. This is a much better alternative to call “Home for BPS Athletics” and not a compromise. It fulfills the needs of the community & BPS athletics at a reasonable cost to the taxpayer.”

“I appreciate this design because it creates a real alternative to the challenge that we’ve faced for the last 35 years, where the city allowed the stadium to languish and to continue to deteriorate,” said Louis Elisa, a founder of the Franklin Park Coalition and President of the Garrison Trotter Neighborhood Association. “For the needs of our children in the Boston Public Schools, there is a need to have a new facility: a creative space for athletics and opportunities for other activities and programs. This is a real positive alternative, and a beneficial alternative for the residents of Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, and Jamaica Plains, and for the entire city of Boston.”

While the old White Stadium has been demolished, construction of its replacement hasn’t started — or even been put out to bid. In January, prior to the demolition of the old White Stadium, the Conservancy released a more modest, even more affordable public park concept for White Stadium: a $28.9 million plan to renovate the old stadium as a high-quality, fully-public high school stadium. The new, updated design responds to the demolition of the old White Stadium, which eliminated the possibility of a more-affordable renovation project. The proposed new-construction design also includes additional amenities requested by the BPS Athletics Department, including sports medicine and community spaces.

There are numerous examples of high school and even college sports stadiums being built or renovated for similar amounts. Stadium expert Andrew Zimbalist stated last year — even before the project’s price overruns — that “it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Boston taxpayers are subsidizing a professional sports stadium on public recreation land in Franklin Park.”

From 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, August 13 at Lena Park Community Development Corporation (150 American Legion Highway in Dorchester), the Conservancy and the Franklin Park Defenders will hold a community meeting to discuss the updated alternative design concept and the future of White Stadium and in Franklin Park.

Links

New design concept: www.emeraldnecklace.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/250812_White-Stadium-in-Franklin-Park.pdf

Detailed cost estimate: www.emeraldnecklace.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/24012-White-Stadium-Alterations-Estimate.pdf

Refresher: The Latest on the White Stadium Redevelopment Project

With costs continuing to rise and Boston Legacy Football Club now planning to play their inaugural season at Gillette Stadium, more and more people are calling for reconsideration of the controversial proposal to build a professional sports stadium in Franklin Park. In June, the NAACP Boston Branch called for an immediate halt to the professional soccer stadium plans, and expressed support for a significantly more affordable, fully-public stadium renovation that would meet the needs of BPS students and the community, without the many flaws of the new private soccer stadium. And multiple elected officials, including Boston City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune and several of her Council colleagues, as well as State Representative Chynah Tyler, who represents neighborhoods on the north side of Franklin Park, and State Senator Nick Collins, who represents neighborhoods on the east side of the park, have spoken out against the private redevelopment proposal.

While the existing high school stadium on the site has been mostly demolished, construction of the new stadium has still not been fully bid or begun, and residents and advocates say there is still plenty of time to reconsider plans to build a massive new professional sports stadium in Franklin Park. Boston Legacy Football Club missed a major August 1 deadline to obtain the required financing to build the team’s proposed White Stadium professional soccer stadium, casting further doubt on the team’s ability to proceed with the controversial public-private project. In June, leaked city documents revealed that the cost of the city’s half of the project could reach $172 million under ‘worst-case’ contingencies. That would put the total cost of the project as high as $344 million. Mayor Wu admitted that the project’s taxpayer cost would increase again once elements of the project are fully bid this summer, after already tripling from a $30 million estimate when first announced to $91 million as of last December.

White Stadium sits in the middle of a park, with no parking, surrounded by residential neighborhoods, almost a mile from the nearest train station. Since the proposal by Boston’s new NWSL team Boston Legacy Football Club was announced, questions about game-day transportation planning have gone unanswered, and proponents have released a changing set of transportation plans that fail to address local residents’ concerns about traffic gridlock and disruption. In May, the city official overseeing the White Stadium project admitted that transportation plans are “still a work in progress,” even as the existing high school stadium was being torn down.

Background on the White Stadium Redevelopment Project

Residents of Roxbury, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain and Mattapan have significant concerns about the plan to lease White Stadium to a professional sports team — rather than renovating it as a public stadium for the sole benefit of BPS students and the local community. The City of Boston and Boston Unity Soccer Partners (BUSP) have demolished the existing White Stadium in order to build a new, significantly larger for-profit professional sports stadium, entertainment venue, and multiple restaurants and retail shops in its place.

In addition to the legal concerns expressed in an ongoing lawsuit against the project, neighboring residents and park advocates have expressed opposition to the project over issues ranging from increased air, noise and light pollution, increased litter, the removal of 145 mature trees, increased traffic and parking restrictions, and decreased student and community access.

Pro soccer games and other private events would displace BPS students and the community from White Stadium and surrounding parts of Franklin Park on 20 annual game days, 20 practice days, and additional concert and event days - more than half of all weekends during the summer, when residents use the park the most. BPS football teams would be displaced from the stadium entirely during the bulk of their regular season, because the soccer league doesn't want their cleats on the field.