disturbanist
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More stadium stuff
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City presents stadium plans for Inner Belt
Questions of ethics, benefits to city remain
By Tom Nash
City officials presented a plan Wednesday to put a major sports facility, possibly a professional soccer stadium, in the long underutilized Inner Belt and Brickbottom commercial district.
A Green Line station, slated to be built in the neighborhood by 2014, is expected to help revitalize the 160-acre area bordered by McGrath O'Brien Highway. A soccer stadium for New England Revolution home games could be in the plans as well.
City officials helped present the study last week, conducted by CBT, after the Kraft Group, who owns the Revolution and the Patriots, expressed interest in building a soccer stadium in Somerville.
"We agreed that something like a sports facility can really capitalize this area and in fact kick start the identity for this area," said Kishore Varanasi of CBT.
Alderman-at-Large Bill White said, "the study didn't go into great detail about the effects of a soccer stadium" such as the traffic it may generate.
Among the four site options included in the report, one included using air rights above a 10-acre Green Line train maintenance facility that has been proposed by the state for Inner Belt.
White said it is still not clear if the city can reap the commercial tax benefits of a stadium if it is built on top of the maintenance facility, property owned by the state.
Lee Auspitz, a member of the Davis Square Task Force which advocated for city residents when the Red Line came to Somerville in the early 1980s, criticized the city's inaction on addressing the legality of the Kraft Group providing 95 percent of the study's funding under a charitable loan despite the fact that they stand to profit from the stadium as its owners.
"I've seen no action on (the issue), and it's really a disgrace," Auspitz said. "None of us is elevated by being a party to the abuse of charitable organizations. Everybody knows the difference between giving to charity and giving to yourself, and the Kraft Group has given to itself."
Both Varanasi and the city's development director Monica Lamboy refused to discuss that issue.
http://www.thesomervillenews.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=2&ArticleID=259
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