Mayor Michelle Wu and Boston Legacy FC celebrated their courtroom win in the White Stadium renovation case with a rhetorical victory lap Thursday morning.
Standing in a drenching rain while backhoes and dump trucks trundled back and forth at the demolition site in Franklin Park, Wu struck an equal parts defiant and hopeful note over the long-fought over public-private project.
“I will not apologize for investing nearly $100 million into this community, into Black and Brown communities, into our students and into the Boston Public Schools,” said Wu. “We deserve this, and we deserve to have the opportunity that generation after generation has passed this by and has been delayed. So, it is time for us to make these investments.”
The women’s soccer team is expected to pay for more than half of a project that is expected to eventually climb above $200 million, with new global tariffs not expected to affect the total price.
The 79-year-old stadium is already more than halfway demolished.
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When the project is complete, it will serve as the new home for Boston Public Schools Athletics, with an 8-lane track and two new grandstands that will contain office space, up-to-date locker rooms, space for strength and conditioning, as well as community space, plus a restaurant.
Before turning the microphone over to Jennifer Epstein, the controlling manager of the women’s soccer team that expects to play at the rebuilt stadium in less than a year, Wu pointed out what makes the project most unique.
“Just to be clear here, the city of Boston and our kids are getting a professional grade stadium for half the sticker price, where this amazing team is going to be the example of professionalism and excellence that our students can look up to, and they are going to fund the maintenance and operations of this facility every year afterwards,” said Wu. “This will be the only stadium in the country where a professional sports team is paying rent to play alongside a public school district and their student teams in a new state of the art stadium.”
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Epstein, wearing a Boston Legacy cap, reaffirmed how the franchise hopes to make a difference beyond staking a claim to winning on the field.
“We have set a new standard of how sports franchises can connect to their community by redefining what a team’s commitments to social impact can look like — tens of millions of dollars will be directed into historically neglected neighborhoods via contracting opportunities for minority and women owned businesses,” said Epstein.
Asked about how construction costs will be affected by President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs plan, Wu said the city hopes it dodged the worst of the expected spike.
“Being able to move forward at this point now, we may just catch or avoid the worst of what’s to come,” said Wu. “I know the team has been working to lock down some of their contracts with their general contractor, etc. We’re also at the point of being able to go out to bid soon.”
Dion Irish, the city’s chief of operations, said, “Our estimates are holding and we’re confident that we’ll be able to maintain our budget.”
Also speaking at the event were BPS students and staff, elected officials and a community supporter, Beth Santos, who urged reconciliation with foes of the project who brought a lawsuit that a Superior Court judge ruled against on Wednesday.
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“No matter where you stood before yesterday, this is our chance not to continue fighting about the question of the stadium, but rather the question of how we are going to continue to make this stadium and its surrounding green space serve our community, our people and our city in the very best way possible,” said Santos.
Linda Henry, CEO of Boston Globe Media Partners, announced in February she was withdrawing from the investor group behind the soccer team.
Michael Silverman can be reached at [email protected].