IN A HIGHLY anticipated ruling, the state’s highest court rejected a challenge to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s proposal to transform Franklin Park’s White Stadium into a $325 million professional soccer stadium, siding with the city in a lawsuit attempting to block the controversial project from moving forward.
Wu’s plan would redevelop the 77-year-old facility into a glossy new stadium to house Boston Public Schools athletics and Boston Legacy FC, the city’s National Women’s Soccer League team.
It quickly drew a lawsuit in 2024 from nearby residents and the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, arguing that the city’s proposal violated the terms of the George Robert White Fund, the charitable trust that built and technically still owns the stadium site, by allowing the for-profit soccer organization to use the stadium for private purposes and change the stadium and surrounding area from protected public parkland to a new semi-private use.
In April 2025, a Suffolk County Superior Court judge dismissed the stadium lawsuit after a three-day trial. The plaintiffs appealed, and the Supreme Judicial Court decided to take on the case.
In a unanimous decision Wednesday, the SJC declared the collection of conservationists and residents did not have standing to block the project. Only the attorney general or a trustee may sue to defend the trust’s terms, the SJC said.
“The plaintiffs in this case assert no cognizable interest in the White Fund itself,” wrote Justice Gabrielle Wolohojian. “And, to state the obvious, they are neither the Attorney General nor trustees of the White Fund.”
In oral arguments on April 8, justices pressed both sides on whether mid-20th century statutes authorizing “the stadium” cover the new complex — an entirely new facility being built on the site of the recently razed White Stadium — with Chief Justice Kimberly Budd telling the city’s lawyer, “everyone knows it’s not going to be the same.”
The plaintiffs claimed the parcel was subject to Article 97 of the Massachusetts Constitution, adopted in 1972, which requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to dispose of parkland or convert it to another use. Boston’s plan was inked without petitioning the Legislature to change its use.
But the SJC ultimately ruled that the stadium site itself is not protected parkland and the surrounding area will not be changed from a park.
Almost 150 years ago, the city of Boston took by eminent domain land for a public park, in an area bounded by several of the city’s southern neighborhoods. It would become Franklin Park —the “crown jewel” of the Emerald Necklace park system designed by famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. With legislative approval, 14 acres were later transferred to a trust created by the will of antibacterial soap magnate George Robert White to build a stadium.
Control over the stadium parcel, but not ownership, was transferred to the city’s school committee in 1949. The next year, the Legislature tasked the school committee with maintaining the stadium as though it were a school building or yard as long as the city controlled the parcel.
So, Wolohojian wrote, even though it was initially considered as a park, lawmakers authorized the stadium to be developed and maintained for reasons that were not limited to park use. By the time the state ratified Article 97 of the Massachusetts Constitution regulating parkland in 1972, Wolohojian wrote, White Stadium had not been “subject to its provisions” for two decades.
The project, which began as a proposed renovation of the 10,000-seat historic stadium, remains controversial.
On a political level, critics have paired the stadium plan with the hotly debated proposal for a dedicated bus lane on Blue Hill Avenue as examples of projects that they say the Wu administration is forcing on predominantly Black neighborhoods against their will. The Boston branch of the NAACP last year joined a vocal chorus of local leaders with “serious concerns” about the project, and called for it to be scrapped.
The city plans to cover $135 million of that cost, nearly triple its original estimate; Boston Legacy FC is privately funding the remaining $190 million and will pay tens of millions more in rent and maintenance over the coming years.
Opponents have decried the ballooning cost, potential impacts on the surrounding area because of increased traffic, and limits on public use of the site. They say the city should still pivot to a less expensive and fully public stadium.
“We’re disappointed by this outcome,” Emerald Necklace Conservancy president Karen Mauney-Brodek said in a statement following Wednesday’s court ruling.
The new “professional for-profit sports stadium and entertainment complex in Franklin Park will not be subject to the high level of scrutiny, formal review of alternatives, and required approvals that our state’s constitutional public recreation land protection laws require,” she wrote. “We do not think the current proposal is the right one for the park or the communities that surround it.”
Conservation, environmental justice, and land trust groups submitted briefs in support of the Emerald Necklace lawsuit. A coalition of universities and municipal groups submitted briefs supporting Boston’s position, concerned that the court might extend Article 97 in a way that would sharply curtail what public-private projects cities and towns could pursue.
Wu has defended the project as a valuable use of city land and funds. In announcing the updated cost in February, with construction well underway, the mayor said the project “will deliver the largest community benefits deal in Boston’s history.”
After the ruling, the mayor said the decision “confirms that Boston’s student-athletes, park lovers, and community will fully benefit from this landmark investment in our future, without further delay.” In a statement, Wu said, “This is a great victory for our city — and for all who believe that Boston can and should take big swings to get things done for our community.”
