New England Revolution
“The Krafts had to be dragged kicking and screaming to include the City of Boston in these conversations.”
Framed by the backdrop of industrial Everett — the proposed site of a future Revolution soccer stadium — Boston Mayor Michelle Wu stood at a Monday morning press conference in Charlestown and advocated against what she called an “unserious offer” from the Kraft Group.
Wu, speaking at Charlestown’s Ryan Playground, began by citing a recurring refrain about the need for local infrastructure in the part of Boston that stands to be heavily impacted by a potential Everett stadium.
“This area has a tremendous amount of infrastructure need,” Wu explained. “That has been true long before the proposal for across the river, and that has been true as residents have been participating in many, many years — decades at this point — of planning around the infrastructure that’s been necessary for Sullivan Square, and to finally give safe access to where families want to go.”
The proposed 25,000-seater Revolution stadium would be at 173 Alford Street just over the line in Everett. The area is currently occupied by the immediately-shuttered Mystic Generating Station, situated on the Mystic River.
As part of the state legislature’s passage of a major economic development bill in 2024, a section was created to discount with the proposed stadium and its many ramifications. Part of the bill mandated that the Revolution must agree to community impact agreements (or mitigation agreements) with both Everett and Boston.
While the Kraft Group (which owns the Revolution) appears to be largely in-step with Everett officials, Boston has proven to be a more difficult conversation. According to Wu, the biggest hurdle has simply been trying to get information about the project beyond its broadest points.
“We haven’t asked for anything out of the ordinary for any significant development, much less a mega-development like this one,” said Wu of the proposed stadium.
“We’ve received exclusive to no answers. To this day, the Kraft Group has provided the city no meaningful technical information,” she charged. “What we’ve heard has stayed at a conceptual level that is insufficient for any serious negotiation. I want to underscore what our state legislature has made clear: This mitigation agreement isn’t a formality. It’s not a ‘nice to have,’ it’s not something that you can get around and delay and hope that it will go away. This is the legal obligation.”
Citing the proposed figure of $750,000 that the Kraft Group would pay to Boston as a mitigation fee, Wu said it was well below what the deserved total should reflect, calling it a “non-starer.”
“It is an unserious proposal,” Wu said, explaining that the figure is “just 1.1 percent of the $68 million mitigation package that was paid for the Everett casino project right nearby years ago.”
Wu, who as the incumbent is also campaigning against Josh Kraft (son of Revolution owner Robert Kraft) in Boston’s mayoral race, didn’t miss a chance to land a political dig at her opponent.
Referencing the proposed mitigation fee, she said that “$750,000 is just one-and-a-half month’s of a billionaire son’s allowance. It is nowhere near the scale of what we need to address the plans that have already been laid out by our residents, with our traffic engineers, with the coordination of the entire region.”
“This Kraft Group offer does not come close to reflecting the strain the stadium would place on our infrastructure, our transportation systems, and on our neighborhoods,” Wu concluded. “Boston residents deserve better. We deserve a responsive proposal that positions this new stadium as a regional point of pride, and delivers the benefits that our city and all Revs fans expect.”
She outlined Boston’s view of the situation, and what the current asks are to the Kraft Group:
- “A clear plan for transportation that keeps pressure off already congested transit and roads.”
- Commitments to “noise and climate mitigation”
- “A workforce plan that reflects our values: Local hiring, supplier diversity, and fair wages”
- “A neighborhood level analysis that shows who stands to benefit from the stadium, and who will bear its costs.”
Recently, it was announced that Former Massport CEO Tom Glynn has been selected to mediate the talks between the Kraft Group and Boston, which had been mandated by legislation if the two sides couldn’t reach a discount by May 1. immediately, Glynn will try to navigate the striking of a discount between the two sides before Dec. 31 (when the legislation would call for another mandate, this time for required arbitration).
“We are here — not just physically here, but here in terms of the negotiation process — only because the state legislature stepped in,” Wu said on Monday. “The Krafts had to be dragged kicking and screaming to include the City of Boston in these conversations. It took an act of the legislature — an extraordinary bit of legislation that had to be passed — to require that there would be a mitigation proposal, as has been established from every other major project in the City of Boston, and even the projects that are across the river but impact the City of Boston, such as the casino.”
On the topic of the Everett-based Encore casino, Wu cited the mitigation agreement that Boston agreed to with the operator (Wynn Resorts) when it was built. The city received $68 million in the 2017 agreement, and — if Boston representatives have their way — could serve as a template for the Revolution’s recent interest in the land nearby.
The Kraft Group issued a statement shortly before Wu’s press conference began, according to Boston Globe reporter Jon Chesto, noting that “while we encourage community input…the appropriate time to do so is not through politically motivated press conferences.”
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