CRANES WERE SWINGING over White Stadium about a mile away from where Boston Mayor Michelle Wu on Thursday celebrated the court ruling clearing the way for the major construction project to continue.
The press conference unfolded on the patio behind the William J. Devine Golf Course clubhouse in Franklin Park, where Wu joined Boston Public Schools students and coaches, city and state officials, and other community leaders for what speakers repeatedly called a “celebration.” BPS band students welcomed attendees as golfers paused to watch, and most of the crowd squeezed into narrow patches of shade cast by the clubhouse, seeking relief from direct sunlight on the 85-plus-degree day.
At the other end of Franklin Park, construction crews kept working on the mostly scaffolded White Stadium — now with unanimous agreement from the state’s highest court that they can continue to do so.
The White Stadium project is a partnership between Boston Public Schools and Boston Legacy, the professional women’s soccer organization that plans to make the renovated stadium the home of its National Women’s Soccer League team. The city is rebuilding the nearly 80-year-old stadium as a public school and community athletics facility while Boston Legacy will use it for professional soccer and other events and pay for half the renovations.
The project became the subject of a three-year legal fight after the Emerald Necklace Conservancy and 20 citizen plaintiffs sued, arguing that the stadium parcel was protected by Article 97 of the Massachusetts Constitution, which generally requires legislative approval for changes to protected parkland.
The Supreme Judicial Court unanimously rejected that argument Wednesday, ruling that legislative actions in the late 1940s and 1950s had already removed the stadium from Article 97’s protections.
City officials on Thursday cheered that the project will now move ahead without delay, while opponents said the court’s decision does not resolve their concerns about the stadium’s size, cost, private use, and impact on the surrounding park and neighborhoods.
The mayor described the renovation as the culmination of decades of demands for investment in a facility that had deteriorated badly. The stadium’s bleachers had crumbled, she said, locker rooms lacked heat and running water, and students were injured playing on a pitted field and running on a cracked track.
The renovated stadium will provide professional-grade athletic fields, an eight-lane track, new locker rooms, strength and conditioning rooms, study and community spaces, and year-round programming for students and residents, Wu said.
“Everything looked so different when they would go to meets or games in suburban communities compared to when they were back home in their own city. That, to me, was the final straw,” Wu said.
The city’s next steps will include decisions about how the stadium operates on game days. Wu said the facility will be open to the public 15 hours a day, seven days a week, after it reopens next year — a substantial change from recent years when its dilapidated state meant it was open for only limited hours and closed on weekends.
“For so many of our community members who would be walking a dog through the park or coming in for exercise as neighbors who lived in the area, would be that they would see the gates locked and chained up to the stadium itself,” Wu said. “After we cut the ribbon next year, our residents, our communities will be able to use the facilities 15 hours a day, at least seven days a week, open to everyone to come, exercise, be healthy, and get to know your neighbors.”
