Revolution Stadium Groundbreaking "12-24 months" Part XVI

Blinky the three-eyed fish from The Simpsons would be a nice nod to New England’s nautical heritage.

 

You're not making me feel any better about it!

 

That would be a great rebranding : From "The New England Revs" to "The Mystic Toxic Shoccers".....

 

Indeed.

That area of Everett has been home to industrial use since the 1860s. As an example, Encore Boston Harbor sits on land that was home to numerous chemical manufacturing plants. There's every reason to believe that the land beneath Constellation Energy's Mystic Generating Station and Exxon Mobil's tank farm has had toxic substances leaching into it for over 150 years.

Thus far, the only details about the exemptions that have managed to make it into news coverage refer to removing the development site's inclusion as part of a designated port area (thereby opening it up to non-maritime usage) and granting said property a pass on state tidelands law regarding regarding dimensional limitations and requirements (i.e. height, setback, open space requirements, etc.).

Still, anyone with half a brain should be concerned about the possibility that - in addition to the aforementioned exemptions - a late-night, behind-closed-doors legislative deal might have also added language to an economic development bill that exempts said property from certain environmental remediation efforts as well.

As they say, the devil is in the details. The hammering out of this legislation should have included both floor debate and public input, if only so said details might be known to the general public before shovels hit the ground.

 

This certainly looks like a project that's really likely to happen - for the first time since this odyssey started IMO.

Public comment and review and transparency are all well and good, but I don't think a new stadium was ever going to happen that way. Whenever a plan got aired out in the open, opposition mobilized or competition for the site emerged.

The fact that this appears to be shoe-horned in for the Revs/Encore makes me think it's for real this time. Plus the site makes a lot of sense for everyone involved (provided they improve road/transit access).

 

My thoughts exactly. It's easy to be incredibly skeptical at this point, but it's almost impossible not to be optimistic about this opportunity.

 

I agree this feels different.

As much as I want to see this happen for the team I selfishly hope it doesn't. I live 5 miles from Gillette

 

The only way this team will ever be relevant in this market is with a stadium of its own. It's difficult, but you have to put the personal/selfish reasoning aside.

 

I totally agree. I've been spoiled since '96

 

BrickBottom also felt different -- what was that 8 - 10 years ago?

 

Look, I love soccer and want to see the New England Revolution operating out of their own purpose-built, right-sized, sport-specific venue. That said, I'm not one to prioritize professional sports over government transparency, nor do I believe certain projects should be "shoe-horned in" past existing requirements - usage parameters, dimensional limitations/requirements, and environmental standards amongst them - in order to benefit specific parties.

Bottom line? If a soccer-specific stadium for the New England Revolution can't get built in Everett - or anywhere else for that matter - without said facility's site being exempted from "a slew of environmental requirements" via a late-night, behind-closed-doors legislative session, then so be it.

 

Edmund Burke once said: "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion." I'm sure it was with this noble principle in mind when Rep. Daniel Ryan neatly and silently managed to get this slipped into the economic development bill. I highly doubt these provisions will be removed by the Senate, and I expect they will be included when the bill is signed into law by the governor. In principle, I agree with the concerns of those regarding the back-room nature of the creation of these exemptions, and I would be quite disturbed if it included scaling back what I am sure will be massive and extensive site remediation to make it not a toxic wasteland. But sadly when it comes to the development of a SSS in the metro core...to paraphrase the Patriot: I'm a Revs fan, I haven't got the luxury of principles. Build the thing.

All that said, I refuse to get my hopes up about any stadium development until I actually see a done deal and earth moving. All I care about right now is CAN WE FIX THE DAMN TEAM DEFENSE PLEASE AND STOP DROPPING POINTS?!?!?!

 

There is 0% chance the state is giving a developer (for a commercial, health sciences, stadium or whatever type of project) a pass on cleaning up dirty dirt. It would be like rolling back the clock to yesteryear as far as how we build things. Whoever develops it will be on the hook to clean it up.

 

It would have been a beautiful location, but that always had major hurdles - like a long timeline for the MBTA to decide what to do with their rail yards.

I thought the UMass/Boston plan was most likely, but the overheated development market killed that, just like Widett Circle.

If the exemption from regulations is to get around restrictions for port uses and physical limitations, I'm fine with that - it's a casino/development zone now. If it's for bypassing the removal of toxic substances, then it depends. Regulations generally require removing that stuff, but in some cases it may be better leaving it undisturbed (though, how you build a stadium w/o disturbing the area ...?). We don't reprocess toxic waste from soil, it just gets relocated.

 

Listened to this week's podcast with Julian Cardillo and Frank Dell'Apa:

FDA thinks that the Revs really wanted a stadium in Boston - and are settling. Both felt that this deal had real traction - not the least of reasons that it wouldn't have to go before voters. Cardillo felt that a Boston location was never going to happen.

In other stuff, neither put a whole lot of weight behind the current Altidore transfer rumor - OTOH, both do think that the Revs and his agent are probably shopping around for a new gig for him.

 

One other thing from that podcast came to mind - they both concurred about concern about going too small. IOW, they wanted it to be a minimum of 25K capacity.

I'd rather see 30K minimum, or at least a design that allows easy expansion. If we can average 20K in Foxboro, we can average close to 30K at a T-accessible, urban stadium (assuming the T doesn't collapse under it's own ineptitude).

 

Totally agree that a stadium in Boston City limits would never happen. Everett wants this. And, like you said, there would be no neighborhood opposition as there isn't a neighborhood near. If the whole state government passes this it can be fast tracked as soon as environmental clean-up is complete.

 

Weirdly enough, there's a little piece of Charlestown on that side of the river, along Alford Street. There's a scenario where a piece of the stadium grounds could in fact be in Boston.

 

While that may -or not may- be technically true, if nothing gets built on that piece, I don't see issues. However, people could have fun with that fun fact and TV people could go ahead and say "Coming to you from Boston", etc. and they wouldn't be stretching the truth.

 

I was thinking about whether people would perceive it as a Boston stadium and my conclusion was that if you see the downtown skyline beyond the stands (and there's no reason why that shouldn't happen), then, yes, it will be.

 

My cousin’s wife works for the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. According to her, the MWRA’s DeLauri Pump Station - as well as the wind turbine adjacent to it - are both in the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston. In fact, her understanding is that much of Alford Street on the Everett side of the Mystic River actually runs through Charlestown.

 

Boston’s jurisdiction over that land is a result of the city annexing the separate municipality of Charlestown in 1874.

Charlestown - founded in 1692 - once laid claim to land that subsequently became independent jurisdictions including modern Burlington, Malden, Stoneham, Somerville, and Woburn, as well as parts of today’s Cambridge, Medford, and Reading.

In 1649, the residents of what was then dubbed Malden requested that they be allowed to establish their own independent town north of the Mystic River. The leaders of Charlestown were willing to grant the request… provided that the older community maintain control of a pair of farms and - more importantly - a ferry landing on the north shore of the Mystic.

Charlestown maintained control of said ferry landing - as well as properties surrounding it - after the denizens of the southern portion of Malden broke away to form Everett in 1870. Once Charlestown became part of the City of Boston, the latter entity was only too happy to absorb the property.

 

Fair enough. I was saying that I'm not sure if that sliver of Boston would have any stadium upon it. I doubt the planners would attempt that.