Proposed Soccer Stadium Bordering Boston Kicks Up Controversy

Boston officials continue to spar with the owners of a Major League Soccer team proposing a reported $500 million soccer-specific stadium on Boston’s northern border. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu criticized the owner of MLS’s New England Revolution and the NFL’s New England Patriots at a Aug. 4 press conference for not providing a suitable mitigation plan for the stadium proposed to be built in Everett, Mass. on the banks of the Mystic River.

At his own press conference, Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria praised the public-private plan that includes the 25,000-seat stadium and a waterfront park on a 43-acre site currently occupied by a defunct power plant.

Wu says since meeting with the Kraft Group six times since February over a mitigation plan the Kraft Group has not responded to the city’s repeated requests for “basic information about the stadium’s impacts on transportation, noise, jobs, inclusion, our air and water, and the daily impacts that would be felt by our residents.”

Traffic and other issues will be addressed at a forthcoming National Environmental Policy Act hearing, DeMaria said. The blighted defunct waterfront site will be transformed by a developer who can “remove this unsightly building,” he said.  DeMaria said the stadium development is similar to when the nearby Encore Boston Harbor casino project, finished in 2019, redeveloped a 40-acre superfund site that sat dormant for 60 years.

The Kraft Group must sign a mitigation agreement with Boston before breaking ground on their stadium before building permits are valid, Wu said.

Permitting for the stadium is expected to take 12 to 18 months, followed by removal of the defunct Mystic Generating Station that closed in 2024, expected to take three years before construction can begin, according to the Brian Bilello, New England Revolution president. The Kraft Group has been mediating with the city seeking to reach a community benefit agreement by year’s end, Bilello said.

The soccer stadium plan, included in the state’s nearly $4-billion economic development bill, was signed into law in November. Once the state legislature approved a zone change for waterfront land abutting Boston where the stadium is planned, Revolution contacted the city to begin negotiating the community impact agreement, but despite repeated communications, could not schedule a meeting until February, two months after the group’s initial request. He noted that Revolution was working on several traffic and noise mitigation studies.

Since then the city has hired Tom Glynn, former Massport chief executive to mediate the soccer stadium discussions. Wu added that with no primary access and little parking, “tens of thousands of people” would have to walk across a pedestrian bridge over to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Orange Line station.

“The agreement must account for the real impacts the project will have on Charlestown and on our neighborhoods and the city of Boston as a whole,” Wu said, adding that the $750,000 in mitigation funding was insufficient to address resident plans and compensate for “the strain” the stadium would place on Boston’s infrastructure, transportation systems and neighborhoods.

She noted the $750,000 was only a fraction of the $68 million Boston received from developer Steve Wynn for the Encore casino project in Everett. The City of Everett is working with Philip Eng, MBTA general manager and CEO, on plans for building a commuter rail stop in Everett, DeMaria said.

In its host-community agreement with Everett, Wynn agreed to pay for the rail station near its casino. Everett is also working on a fully funded pedestrian bridge that connects to Assembly Row shopping district, DeMaria said. “An underpass has been 70% redesigned so [pedestrians] can walk under the Alford St. Bridge to the [4-acre] waterfront park that the Revs will build,” he said

The city also has a [U.S. Dept. of Transportation] “RAISE (Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity) grant to bring the MBTA Silver line to the community,” DiMaria said.

The $22.4 million grant received in 2024 will allow the MBTA to build a busway between Sullivan Square and downtown Everett. The MBTA plans to build an about 1.2 mile separated on-street busway that will include a section from Alford Street to the Alford Street Bridge in Boston to support three MBTA bus routes.

Transit-oriented development is important for us, said Bilello.  The team wants to assure its 30,000 fans currently driving to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. for games can travel to Revolution games without the drive, he said. “For people who are about the environment, we are taking cars off the road with a project like this,” he said.  

Meanwhile, Josh Kraft, son of Revolution owner Robert Kraft, is running against Wu for Boston mayor. Kraft, who says he will recuse himself from the community mitigation discussions with his family’s business if he’s elected mayor, charges Wu with inflating construction costs to $172 million for Boston’s new women soccer team’s White Stadium project, which Wu denies.

While the White Stadium project won’t be ready for Boston Legacy FC’s 2026 inaugural season, the National Women’s Soccer League team is building a $27 million training facility south of Boston that will be completed by the spring 2026 preseason.