Kraft strikes out again.
What is the next step in the process for the owner of Major League Soccer’s New England Revolution franchise, Robert Kraft, in getting a publicly supported stadium for his business? Kraft lost his bid to build a stadium in Everett, Massachusetts after lawmakers decided not to take up Kraft’s stadium proposal. Kraft is not a happy owner and unloaded on the Massachusetts legislature basically saying the politicians blew it. “This legislative session, our commonwealth missed a vital opportunity to clean up a brownfields site for an environmental justice community, robbing the city of Everett and its community of the ability to remove a dilapidated and decommissioned power plant and remediate a site contaminated over the decades and replace it with a public park, waterfront access, and a privately funded soccer stadium”. But in the stadium game, not all is lost for Kraft.
Kraft has been looking for a soccer-only stadium in the Boston area for more than 15 years. The Revolution franchise plays its games at Kraft’s National Football League New England Patriots’ venue in Foxboro. 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. He returns to the drawing board and Everett could still be an option.
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