Boston’s White Stadium rehab gained’t be prepared in time for NWSL group’s inaugural season

Boston’s controversial White Stadium rehab is not going to be accomplished in time for the following Nationwide Girls’s Soccer League season, forcing town’s new skilled group to play their 2026 residence video games at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro.

A Boston Legacy FC membership spokesperson confirmed the choice to briefly swap venues on Wednesday, emphasizing the brand new group’s dedication to taking part in at White Stadium upon completion of its greater than $200 million public-private redevelopment of the ability with the Metropolis of Boston.

“Boston Legacy’s home is White Stadium,” membership spokesperson Steph Yang mentioned in an announcement. “With the 2026 NWSL season starting in 10 months, Boston Legacy FC will play its inaugural season at Gillette Stadium earlier than the membership strikes into its everlasting residence at White Stadium in 2027.

“After nearly two years of community process, including more than 70 public meetings, a landmark lease agreement, and a clear victory at trial, White Stadium construction is well underway, but construction will not be finished by March of 2026. For this reason, we have selected Gillette Stadium as an alternate site for 2026 to ensure the consistent, high-level experience our fans and players deserve.”

The membership’s determination to change venues, first reported by the Boston Globe, comes days after the Emerald Necklace Conservancy and a gaggle of 20 neighbors looking for to dam town’s White Stadium soccer deal filed an enchantment to a Suffolk Superior Court docket choose’s determination in April to toss their lawsuit, after a three-day trial.

The membership is owned by Boston Unity Soccer Companions, an all-female possession group that features Boston Globe CEO Linda Pizzuti Henry as an investor. Pizzuti Henry introduced final February that she was working to depart the investor group.

The plaintiffs’ enchantment, which was lambasted by Mayor Michelle Wu’s workplace final Friday, argues that whereas the choose dominated that the White Stadium parcel itself isn’t protected parkland beneath the state Structure, the encompassing parkland in Franklin Park that will likely be impacted by the mission falls beneath that class.

Thus, the plaintiffs say, the mission needs to be topic to additional assessment earlier than it’s allowed to go ahead.

The delay in use of White Stadium for the brand new professional soccer group was cheered by the plaintiffs who oppose a professional soccer use of the ability, which the brand new NWSL group is about to share with Boston Public Faculties student-athletes beneath a 10-year lease settlement with the Metropolis of Boston.

“This news comes as a relief for the communities around Franklin Park who have been alarmed by the profit-driven rush to convert White Stadium into a professional sports complex,” Melissa Hamel, a Jamaica Plain resident and plaintiff within the lawsuit, mentioned.

“We hope that more time will allow for a reevaluation of the flawed plan to build an 11,000-seat sports and entertainment complex in the middle of a park, with no parking and limited transit access.”

Fellow plaintiff Renee Stacey Welch, who lives in Egleston Sq., urged the membership to make everlasting the non permanent swap in venues for its residence video games.

“Boston Legacy’s decision to play their first season at Gillette points to a much better way forward for everyone in Boston,” Welch mentioned. “A special everlasting residence for the soccer group, and a fully-public White Stadium for the unique advantage of Boston Public Faculties college students and the general public.

“There is still time to pursue that win-win,” she mentioned.

Yang, the membership spokesperson, mentioned the NWSL growth group is dedicated to White Stadium. She pointed to the deal the membership’s possession group has struck with town, which can see it contribute greater than half the prices of the greater than $200 million public-private plan.

Boston taxpayers pays roughly $100 million for town’s half of the mission, and counting, with the Wu administration not ruling out additional price overruns. The mission has cut up the neighborhood, with the taxpayer tab, which has doubled from preliminary projections, being a supply of competition amongst critics.

“We have signed a non-binding agreement with the City of Boston, are contributing over half the cost of the renovation, and have committed to spending at least 50% of those dollars with local, minority- and women-owned businesses,” Yang mentioned.

“As part of our lease with the city, we will cover the full cost to operate and maintain White Stadium for decades, as a home for Boston Public Schools athletics and a new public resource in Franklin Park,” she added.

The brand new professional girls’s group will share use of Gillette Stadium with the New England Revolution, an expert males’s soccer group owned by Robert Kraft, proprietor of the New England Patriots and father to mayoral candidate Josh Kraft, who opposes town’s White Stadium plan.

Robert Kraft is looking for to maneuver the New England Revolution to a proposed new stadium in Everett, however his firm’s negotiations over a neighborhood mitigation settlement with the Metropolis of Boston have reached a standstill and gone to mediation, a spokesperson for Mayor Wu mentioned in a current assertion to the Herald.

Of the stadium deal the mayor has championed, a Wu spokesperson mentioned of the delay Wednesday, “Construction of White Stadium is well underway to deliver on long overdue improvements for BPS student athletes and all those who use and love Franklin Park.”