Revolution Stadium Groundbreaking "12-24 months" Part XVI

Also, if that's city-owned land, they're gonna have to figure a way around laws that would require it to go out for bid.

 

Developers usually announce first, do hearings second.

 

.@BOSCityCouncil hearing now on Administration’s request to surplus & potentially sell the City’s 18-acre Frontage Road site: https://t.co/9A9nVMExVf #bospoli pic.twitter.com/O1NBsIkNla

— Michelle Wu 吳弭 (@wutrain) August 30, 2018

 

I'm confident the Krafts have the capability to outbid any developer in the city, barring the Saudi Royal Family or similar takes interest. The question is the willingness to part with said money.

 

#NERevs fans who are interested in latest stadium talk should just pull up John A. Keith's entire twitter timeline. He's covering a lot of the aspects around this latest stadium flurry.

https://twitter.com/JohnAKeith

 

Here's some details from one of the City Councilors who was present for today's hearing. There's a video referenced too for those of you who are really curious and want to dig deep.

Hearing was on Mayor’s order to declare the parcels “surplus” & transfer to Public Facilities Commission for disposition. Need Council vote to surplus. It was filed 7/11 and today was 1st public hearing. Admin said no firm plans, would do RFP. Video is up: https://t.co/Or9KYp3XTm

— Michelle Wu 吳弭 (@wutrain) August 30, 2018

 

Looking at this parcel on google maps, is it large enough for a soccer stadium? There's a playground on the opposite side of 93 with soccer lines on it, and if it is regulation size (it may be smaller) I don't see how an MLS pitch and 20,000+ seats could possibly be built on that narrow slice of available land.

 

A Globe article about the Frontage Road sale has a couple of mentions of the Revs and a potential stadium, although apparently the club wasn't mentioned during yesterday's council hearing.

Boston to put its dreaded tow lot up for sale

 

I think that playground across the interstate is where Emerson College plays

https://www.emersonlions.com/athletics/facilities/The_Field_at_Rotch_Playground

 

Chesto upped the ante in today's paper.


Honestly, he's stirring the pot here, since no one from the city or the Krafts said anything about it. So it's just his speculation.

 

I'm sorry. Perhaps it's just echoes of oft-told fables. Mayhap it's simply that we are passing through, (hopefully), a time where not not-so-artfully crafted falsehoods are so common that a sizable minority readily accepts them as the words of the anointed. But, to me, this whole scenario is only too familiar. Let's just refer to it as another justification for not standing downwind of a barnyard.

 

HUGE SMILE

 

It would take a very very impressive capital contribution to the Fund for Marty Walsh's Political Future to get Marty to spend that sort of political capital.

 

I don't think so - and I think that's the biggest obstacle to this coming to fruition. I don't think Walsh will be able to just deal it to the Krafts without putting it out to bid - and I think the competition from developers will be very intense, probably pushing the price out of the Krafts' range IMO.

The market for large, developable tracts isn't hot, it's super-white hot.

IMO it would be more about political support, not so much $$. And, it's a good, forward-thinking project for Walsh to champion and distinguish himself as a do-er if he believes in it.

 

At this point, if the Krafts are serious about a stadium in Boston, they're prepared to pay the price. Of course, if he has Walsh on his side, it might be possible to word the bid document in his favor. (Though "must include 20,000 seat stadium" might be pushing it.)

 

Draft lease sheds light on Kraft soccer plans

 

I just came here to post that. You got me by 3 minutes.

One important similarity to the WooSox situation that the article doesn't mention...a Revs stadium will require infrastructure upgrades that will almost certainly be paid for (at least initially) by the state & feds.

 

I wouldn't consider "infrastructure" improvements as a "handout." You know when they built those fancy hotels and new buildings down in the Seaport District they spent a lot of money on roads, sewer/water, electrical grid, etc. which turned a run-down area into a "destination." Without that, those developments don't get built. I don't have a problem with them doing that for a major project like a stadium, which will also revitalize an area.

 

I would have thought that too but BU is literally feet from the Mass Pike. I can't imagine that's the main reason?

 

It as as suitable for residential development as the Ink Block neighborhood, where housing has been constructed cheek-by-jowl with "exposure to air particulates from the highway" (

 

As I type this, I'm sitting in a friend's home in the Ink Block neighborhood that directly overlooks the very same highway you speak of. Development of residences, a hotel, a supermarket, and other amenities cheek-by-jowl with the "air particulates from the highway", has taken place at a breakneck pace in the Ink Block.

While the argument can be made that the presence of the city's public works yard on Frontage Road may have contributed to a greater amount of industrial pollution than the presence of the Boston Herald building did at the corner of Albany Street and Harrison Avenue, I'm sure there was significant cleanup undertaken at the former home of the newspaper.

Finally, if one looks at a current aerial view of I-93 where it abuts the Ink Block neighborhood and the public works yard, it would appear that there is a more dense concentration of highway lanes and surface roads adjacent to the former, than to the latter.

Bottom line? In light of the highway-adjacent development that has taken place in the Ink Block, claiming that the public works yard sight is "one of the few bad spots to build housing or office space" in Boston due to "exposure to air particulates from the highway" doesn't strike me as holding up to scrutiny.

 

Right.

While some criticized the state for giving Kraft a handout by investing in rt1 improvements for Gillette, I think it's the state/fed/local govt.'s responsibilities to assure there is adequate transportation, if they are going to keep approving on-going development. The "improvements" there were a long overdue responsibility.

In the Burlington->Nashua, rt. 3 corridor, the state and municipalities approved more and more development, while commuting traffic continued to go from bad to worse to horrible. When they *finally* got around to expanding rt. 3, it was long overdue.