Available land in Boston is scarce.
There was a report in the Boston Globe that the new majority owner of the National Basketball Association’s Boston Celtics franchise Bill Chisholm might be interested in building a basketball only arena in the city. The business has a deal to use its present venue until 2036 so there is no rush to build an arena. Chisholm may have another problem and it is big problem in Boston because there is very little real estate available in the city and if Chisholm needs an example of how difficult it is to find land in Boston, all he has to do is give the National Football League’s New England Patriots’ franchise owner and also the owner of Major League Soccer’s New England Revolution franchise Robert Kraft a call. Kraft has spent two decades looking for a stadium for his soccer business. Kraft wants to build a 25-thousand seat venue on a 43-acre piece of property that sits in Boston and in Everett along the Mystic River that houses a shuttered power plant.
In 2007, Kraft’s MLS business wanted to get a stadium built in Somerville but nothing came of that. Two years later Kraft looked at Somerville again but nothing happened. In 2014, Kraft wanted a stadium in South Boston. Nothing happened. Kraft eyed Dorchester in 2017 but negotiations to build a stadium fell through. In November 2017, Kraft’s son Jonathan, who is the president of the Kraft Group said, “we’re as optimistic as we’ve ever been that in 2018, we will have a piece of land that is in downtown Boston and we will be able to build a home for the Revolution on it.” That never happened. In 2022, Kraft started targeting Everett as a site for his soccer business. Three years later, Kraft is still looking to break ground on a stadium. Chisholm may face the same problem.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
The Boston venue
