The soccer stadium that wasn't
ONE OF Boston's more stagnant sites -- a piece of land in Roxbury called Parcel 3 -- looked as if it had a shot at new life as a professional soccer stadium. But a lack of passion for the project from City Hall has extinguished an intriguing idea.
Trinity Financial, a Boston real estate development company with a record of redeeming hardscrabble areas, wants to build a 20,000-seat stadium in cooperation with the Robert Kraft family, operators of the New England Revolution professional soccer team and owners of the New England Patriots. A partnership was also possible with Northeastern University, which is looking for a new stadium for its football team. But despite lengthy discussions between the parties, the stadium concept was nowhere to be found last month when Trinity filed its formal proposal with the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Instead, Trinity is proposing an 800,000-square-foot commercial and residential development on the 8-acre site along the Southwest Corridor across from Boston Police headquarters.
Major League Soccer is driving a major campaign to build new stadiums in urban areas, including Toronto and Los Angeles, where the sport could benefit from mass transit and enthusiastic fans, especially new immigrants. Last summer, Mayor Menino promised to appoint a task force of business and sports leaders to evaluate sites for professional soccer in Boston. But not a single member was ever appointed.
It's hard to pinpoint when the stadium idea fell apart, or why. The Menino administration was seeking ironclad guarantees that the abutting Whittier Street public housing complex could be rebuilt elsewhere or incorporated into the site as part of a wider development. The Krafts faced a firestorm of opposition in the mid-1990s when they tried to site a football stadium for the New England Patriots along the South Boston waterfront. Patriots spokesman Stacey James says, "We're happy with things as they are." But the Krafts couldn't be all that happy; they lost a chance to create a legacy by combining the stadium with several youth sports facilities. Besides, they are drawing an average of 13,000 soccer fans per game to giant Gillette Stadium, while the competition is opting for efficient, soccer-specific stadiums that double as concert venues.
There could be lots of good reasons to reject a soccer stadium on Parcel 3. Perhaps the traffic and safety concerns would outweigh the benefits to the community, including jobs, economic development, and philanthropy. Developer demands for tax abatements might easily have killed the project. But these conversations never even had a chance to take place. Letting innovative ideas fizzle before the public can consider them is not good urban policy. The game was forfeited without a fight.
