Press Release: White Stadium Privatization Opponents File Expanded Court Complaint to Protect Franklin Park

For Immediate Release

January 28, 2024

Contact: Carlen Singmaster, Emerald Necklace Conservancy, csingmaster@emeraldnecklace.org, 617-522-2700

Attorney General Notified that Commercial Use of Historic Park Violates Massachusetts Constitution

BOSTON — Plaintiffs in the citizens’ lawsuit to prevent year-round commercial use of White Stadium have filed an expanded legal complaint in Suffolk Superior Court, aiming to prevent corporate control of public parkland in Boston’s historic Franklin Park. Significant new legal issues raised in the legal filing are buried in the recently-signed 321-page lease between the City of Boston and BOS Nation Football Club.

That lengthy lease agreement outlines the specific terms for the massive private sports, entertainment, and restaurant complex planned for Boston’s historic Franklin Park. The new court filing:

·       introduces a new charge: that the project would harm areas of constitutionally protected Franklin Park in addition to its negative impacts on the White Stadium parcel itself;

·       names several additional defendants, including a newly created limited liability corporation formed by BOS Nation Football Club’s principal investor;

·       reveals that city officials and the team’s investors were having private discussions months before the city announced plans to renovate White Stadium.

The constitutional violations are particularly troubling, and legally required that the plaintiffs notify Attorney General Campbell in advance of the new filing. Her office received written notice of the new claims on January 8.

Twenty individual residents and the Emerald Necklace Conservancy allege in the lawsuit that the proposal by the City of Boston and BOS Nation Football Club violates Article 97 of the Massachusetts Constitution by illegally transferring public trust and conservation land to private use.  A trial in the lawsuit is scheduled to begin on March 18, 2025. Opponents of the pro soccer stadium support an alternative plan to renovate the stadium as a public high school facility for BPS student-athletes, at a much lower cost.

“It’s been clear from the start that the plan to demolish White Stadium and build a new professional soccer stadium in its place violates constitutional restrictions regarding the use of public trust and conservation land,” said plaintiff Melissa Hamel, a Jamaica Plain resident. “But as more details of this privatization scheme emerge, it’s apparent that the proposal’s negative impacts go much further, and would permanently harm areas of surrounding public parkland in our beloved Franklin Park.”

“This is our public park, and it’s meant for the public, not for private profit,” she continued. “We’re confident that when this case reaches trial, the court will find that the pro soccer stadium plan violates Article 97 of the state constitution. And we’re confident that the court will protect the public’s constitutional right to the continued public use and enjoyment of Franklin Park — Boston’s greatest open space.”

The expanded complaint comes as a response to a lease agreement and accompanying stadium usage agreement signed last month by various entities associated with the City of Boston and BOS Nation. The City and team plan to convert significant public recreation land within Franklin Park, outside of the White Stadium footprint, to commercial stadium usage, including access and service truck routes through Franklin Park for the new for-profit professional soccer stadium and entertainment complex and a new year-round for-profit restaurant.

The expanded complaint states that the lease and stadium usage agreements “reveal a much broader use, and more significant impact, on Franklin Park than originally represented.” A preliminary judicial decision in the case made last March, which allowed the project to proceed through design and construction while the legal case unfolded, did not examine the issue of the project’s impact on the parkland surrounding the stadium site.

“Just 7 weeks from now, a trial will begin to determine the fate of this project, and the future of Franklin Park,” said plaintiff Carla-Lisa Caliga, a Jamaica Plain resident. “There’s no good reason to clear cut 145 trees and permanently damage Franklin Park before the project’s fate is known, other than the soccer team’s rushed timeline and their private investors’ desire for maximum profit. We’re begging city officials not to cut down these irreplaceable trees before the public has our day in court.”

The expanded complaint newly names as defendants several signatories of the lease and stadium use agreement: the Boston School Department, the Boston Parks and Recreation Department, and Boston Unity Stadco, LLC, a Massachusetts-based limited liability corporation that was formed in December as an affiliate of Boston Unity Soccer Partners, LLC (BUSP LLC), a Delaware limited liability company that owns the NWSL expansion rights for Boston.

The expanded complaint also reveals that representatives of a private investment group which ultimately became BUSP LLC were having private discussions with city officials about their plans to redevelop White Stadium as early as September 2022, months before the city put out a Request for Proposals (RFP) to redevelop White Stadium in April 2023. BUSP LLC was the sole respondent to the RFP.

“From the start, city and team officials have misled the public about the nature of their plans for White Stadium, and the process they took to get here. They billed it as an $80 million project, and now the cost is over $200 million and rising. They called it a renovation of the existing stadium, when they plan to tear down everything but a single wall,” said plaintiff Rodney Singleton, a Roxbury resident. “They claimed it was all about BPS student-athletes, but Boston Public Schools football teams won’t be allowed to play in the new stadium during their regular season. And now, we’ve learned that city officials and the team’s investors were having private discussions months before the city announced plans to renovate White Stadium. This is an inside job for the benefit of a few multi-millionaire investors, and the public was never asked if we wanted it.”

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 project would clear-cut 145 trees and harm historic public parkland in the process. In addition to the legal concerns expressed in the ongoing lawsuit, 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, football exclusion until November, and decreased community access.

Earlier this month, the Emerald Necklace Conservancy released a report proposing an alternative concept: a high-quality, fully public renovation of White Stadium that would avoid the many negative impacts of building a professional sports venue in the middle of historic Franklin Park. A detailed cost estimate conducted by Vermeulens, Inc. included in the report found that Boston could renovate White Stadium as a high-quality, fully public high school stadium for $28.9 million — a fraction of the cost of the professional soccer stadium plans.

In contrast, city and team officials have not released any detailed cost estimate for their proposal — just ballpark figures. During a Boston City Council hearing on the project last week, city officials revealed that the taxpayer cost of the project has risen once again, and now sits at $100 million — up from $91 million just last month, and more than double the estimate when the project was shepherded through a series of city approvals in 2024.

The latest estimate comes before the project to tear down White Stadium and build a massive private sports and concert complex in its place has even been put out to bid, but as the city plans to begin demolition of the existing stadium and the removal of 145 trees in Franklin Park, as soon as this week.

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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.”