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Bad news for the Emerald Necklace? Controversial proposal to build a pro soccer stadium in Boston’s historic Franklin Park could see dozens of trees bulldozed
The cost to build a women’s pro soccer stadium in Boston’s historic Franklin Park has doubled to $200 million in the last few days.
And Boston taxpayers will be on the hook for at least $91 million, as part of the Wu administration’s deal with BOS Nation.
But along with being a boondoggle to end all boondoggles, the project also comes with an environmental cost that Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, the queen of everything green, does not exactly appear eager to talk about.
Few people will mourn the loss of White Stadium, a dilapidated high school field that Boston’s bloated educational bureaucracy should have fixed years ago and which sits in one of the city’s oldest parks.
Yet it’s not just the 1940s area stadium that is slated for demolition. As many as 145 trees, some planted decades ago, are likely also headed into the wood chipper to make way for a much larger soccer arena and athletic facility, and a planned amenities area next to it, according to the latest estimates by city officials.
BOS Nation’s new 10,000 seat soccer palace, with new school athletic facilities, will cover seven acres, up from the woeful White Stadium’s five acre footprint.
An additional 1.25 acres of parkland will be paved over next door to make way for the “Grove,” a Fenway Park-like concessions area that has been pitched as a public gathering place, but will be closed off during game days for soccer fans.
It includes a new beer garden building.
All of which means a lot of trees will have to go, surely not what Frederick Olmsted had in mind when he designed Franklin Park in the 1890s as part of the Emerald Necklace of parks and green spaces stretching across Boston and Brookline.
The Wu administration is now doing its best to spin the tree issue as it faces rising criticism on a number of fronts related to a stadium plan that is likely headed to the quarter-billion dollar mark, if not higher.
City officials have scheduled a meeting for 5:30 p.m. Thursday to discuss the “investments being made to the tree canopy at Franklin Park around White Stadium.”
A poster advertising the meeting claims that just 19 of the trees slated for removal are healthy, with the rest sick, “invasive,” or near the stadium walls.
How convenient.
There is also now sudden interest on the part of the city, which hasn’t exactly earned a sterling reputation over the years when it comes to park maintenance, in planting 500 new trees around the stadium site.
Funny thing is, that’s exactly what The Emerald Necklace Conservancy, which is at the center of a lawsuit challenging the stadium plan, has been doing for years now.
And with money from donors, not city taxpayers.
We are sure the nonprofit would welcome the help - just not in this way.
Bring your opinions and hot takes: Contrarian Boston to host a live chat today on the challenges facing the Democratic Party in the wake of a stunning rebuke by voters
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And we’ll also look at whether the Bay State’s all-Democratic congressional delegation is capable of leading the party out of the political wilderness - or is instead part of the problem.
Join us at Substack Chat and look forward to seeing you there.
Buyer’s remorse: As Boston continues to roll out bike lanes, Toronto is taking a very different approach
Tens of millions of dollars are slated to be spent on bike lanes in Toronto. On removing them, that is.
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