Records reveal that negotiations to rehab Boston’s White Stadium for a new pro women’s soccer team were “underway long before the city sent out a request for proposals,” according to Gayla Cawley of the BOSTON HERALD. Internal city emails show that Boston Unity Soccer Partners first reached out to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration about their plans to bring a new professional women’s soccer team to Boston in September 2022, when the for-profit group indicated their “intense interest in Franklin Park’s White Stadium as the team’s future home.” The emails show the eventual terms of the city’s request for proposals “started to be shaped through seven months of conversations between Boston Unity and city officials.” Those private talks took place ahead of the city’s formal RFP release to prospective bidders in April 2023. Boston Unity was selected for the project after submitting the only bid in June 2023. Boston Unity submitted a statement of intent to the city on Dec. 12, 2022, “laying out its plan to ‘significantly rehabilitate and operate George Robert White Stadium at Franklin Park, Roxbury.’” The group sent a “final, more detailed” letter of intent on April 14, 2023. The letter also outlined the eventual agreed-upon terms of a 10-year lease agreement finalized this past December (BOSTON HERALD, 2/25).
ON THE OFFENSIVE: In Boston, Michael Silverman noted community supporters of the public/private project yesterday “began playing some offense” during a virtual press conference. The supporters “took care to not only laud how the project … will benefit the under-resourced Boston Public Schools, but also took aim at the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, which is behind much of the resistance.” The press conference was held to announce a letter to Wu signed by more than 40 leaders of Boston after-school and youth sports programs who believe “that delaying or halting this project would jeopardize critical resources for young people and the programs that support them.” Landscape architect and Roslindale resident Ricardo Austrich “took issue with the assertion by opponents that the new stadium will have a negative impact on the park.” Emerald Necklace Conservancy President Karen Mauney-Brodek in an email said, “We continue to believe that a better plan is possible -- a fully public renovation of White Stadium that prioritizes BPS students and the community over private, for-profit entities.” Thirteen organizations and 350-plus individuals have signed a statement of principles on the ENC website “in support of reconsidering the project” (BOSTON GLOBE, 2/24).
