New England Revolution Stadium | 173 Alford Street | Boston-Everett

[Arlington]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

That said, there is a lot of empty land (parking lots) next to the defunct Loews cinema. If you demolish the cinema and the Circuit City and use up all the parking lots, is that enough room for a stadium without needing to displace Home Depot?

Something is keeping these rumors alive. They seem correctly-timed and roughly the kind of thing that should come up. This has the feel of the scramble when the music stops in musical chairs. There's room for Kraft now, if he hustles, but soon all the parcels will be spoken for (or we should be hearing more about him slotting something in on the Sullivan Sq waterfront)

Using the footprint of Red Bull Arena, which is generally considered a good SSS except for its location, it isn't big enough as the stadium would jut into where New Road is (and thats also assuming you get rid of Assembly Square Drive in between Foley Street and New Road as well.)

The Home Depot site seems like it would just barley fit a stadium with its width and the angle Assembly Square Drive not forming a right angle at the intersection.

Did you answer Ron's question? I think the Sony/Loewes Theater (building + Parking lot) would be sufficient for a copy of the Red Bull Arena, and so the answer to Ron is "yes"

The Red Bull Arena (New Jersey) appears to have an outer dimension of 600ft x 450ft...which is also about the size of the Sony/Loews building plus its "front" parking lot. (Eyeballing it, the building is 600ft from north to south and about 200 ft wide. Including all its parking lots, the whole site is about 800' at its longest and 600' (but oddly shaped) but they should be able to fit a 600'x450' arena it in the middle of it.

I tend to believe that the Krafts are still looking for parcels in the area, and tend to believe that the City has identified easy-to-acquire and easy-to-"redevelop" sites. The Sony/Loews would be a good one because it would have such great transit (Assembly, Sullivan+Bus).

And one of these days, somebody is going to pay for bike/pedestrian bridges to Wellington and Everett Costco

 

[akmags]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

Wouldn't this put Assembly Square over the top? When does this development become too big for it's own good?

 

[fattony]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

Wouldn't this put Assembly Square over the top? When does this development become too big for it's own good?

Assembly Square is somewhat isolated, but it is still a piece of a city and it is served by a rapid transit station. How much stuff is too much stuff for an area with local road, highway, and transit access? A hell of a lot more than 6 residential and office buildings, a Kmart, and a soccer stadium.

Assembly is getting started with a big burst, but it will continue to develop for the next 20 years or more before it is fully built out.

 

[Equilibria]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

How about decking the stadium and surrounding plaza over I-93? The public could provide a little boost to cover the decking cost (or the Assembly Square developer could... it's a huge help to them for connecting their site to the city around it), and the highway isn't high enough there to be much of an issue. The stadium would be in the sky to some extent, but you could actually do some cool stuff with putting retail on the streetfront, or you could just use the deck for the plaza and West grandstand with the field at ground level pressed up against the interstate.

In the craziest iteration, the stadium could sit above the highway with a full conference center or retail store underneath it on the HD site. I don't think the whole thing would be taller than the mid-rises in AS as is...

 

[George_Apley]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

Wouldn't that entail trenching the Pike? It's elevated at Assembly Square. Maybe I'm not being very imaginative, but how do you deck an elevated highway?

 

[shmessy]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

http://soccer.si.com/2013/09/13/mls-expansion-team-likely-heading-atlantas-way/

Interesting part of that article:

"On Thursday afternoon, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that negotiations between Blank and the league “accelerated” when the Falcons received approval for the new stadium, which will be 70-80 percent privately financed."

Ergo - - The State of Georgia, or the City of Atlanta, or Fulton County (or a mixture of all three) will be ponying up $200-$300 million for the public portion of this stadium.

It's certainly a different world down there from Boston and they've been scared by the Braves recent decision to move out of Atlanta.

 

[Arlington]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

Wouldn't this put Assembly Square over the top? When does this development become too big for it's own good?

In what sense do developments get too big for their own good? Traffic? Other than that, this does not have the other downsides that developments in the 'burbs have (school overcrowding? sprawl?).

I think the good news for a soccer stadium would be that it would not be an office or retail use and so would tend to use the roads and transit at a time when they arent' busy. In that sense, it seems very complementary.

 

[kjdonovan]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

Fenway Park isn't exactly aptly placed to accommodate 40,000 fans 80-90 times a year, and yet we endure. Assembly is a better location for a sports stadium since no major secondary roadways (i.e. Storrow, Memorial, Mass Ave) are choked up in addition to the highways. And highways are always going to have peak times so I don't think highway traffic is a good reason to not build something.

I think Curtatone is cautiously supportive of this idea, not frothing. The area will be relatively successful no matter what gets shoehorned in (relative in this case being "better than what's at other Orange Line stops north of Boston"). If not soccer, then we wait ten years and see further build-out of the area next to the station and greater connection to Charlestown by way of new ped/cycle connections and Sullivan Square rehab. No biggie.

The tragedy of this area is actually Sullivan Square. If Sullivan ever gets that infusion of infrastructure improvements, then everything from Assembly to the Mystic piers in Charlestown will benefit. If MassDot and everyone else fudges that project, all will suffer.

Actually reminds me of yesterday's On Point show with Larry Summers. A lot of discussion surrounding the lack of infrastructure investment in the US. Compelling listening: http://onpoint.wbur.org/2014/02/06/larry-summers-economy-federal-reserve-stagnation

 

[choo]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

I'll believe this when i see it- as much as I want to see it. Kraft has a nice stadium that plays for itself with football alone. The Revs are some decent offseason revenue from concessions and parking and making the place more attractive to tenants. I don't think he will pour all his own money into an urban stadium for an additional 10k seats and a better atmosphere. Plus all the opportunity cost at the other end. I hope i'm wrong, but I feel he will need a pretty big carrot that he rightly wont get.

 

[Arlington]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

I'll believe this when i see it- as much as I want to see it. Kraft has a nice stadium that plays for itself with football alone. The Revs are some decent offseason revenue from concessions and parking and making the place more attractive to tenants. I don't think he will pour all his own money into an urban stadium for an additional 10k seats and a better atmosphere. Plus all the opportunity cost at the other end. I hope i'm wrong, but I feel he will need a pretty big carrot that he rightly wont get.

I think Kraft knows he needs a purpose-built stadium close to downtown and I don't think he'll need much of a carrot to build it. {EDIT I suspect the public's contribution will not be to the stadium's cost, but to the cost beefing up roads and transit near wherever it ends up}

The 1950/60/70s "multisport" stadiums (Shea, RFK, Baltimore's Memorial) were failure because they failed the fans. It turned out that stadiums had to work for the fans in a lot more ways than just a seat. They had to match their demographic.

Foxboro and the Pats are both good for an audience that is whiter, richer, older, suburban, corporate, auto-oriented, and good for a crowd of 68,000 on 10 Sunday afternoons per year. Its OK for weekend football that the stadium is in the middle of nowhere, but not for Soccer.

But like baseball, hockey, and basketball, Soccer is best played on weeknights and "downtown" , and ideally, on top of transit in a venue close to people's weekdays and sized to sell out every day, not just to max out during playoffs.

I bet Kraft would take a 40k stadium...smaller than Red Bull's 50k in the same way that Fenway Park seats only 37k vs Yankee Stadium's 50k. You make your money (back) selling out games night after night, not over-sizing your venue.

I'm more convinced than ever that Kraft will do a stadium that seats 40k, and put it someplace where soccer fans can get there via transit.

 

[davem]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

Every time people bring up Fenway + traffic, I have to wonder if you're actually down there on game days. Other than Brookline Ave getting jammed up, there is barely a difference in volume. I cite this as someone who is on foot down there almost every day, as well as the year I spent doing deliveries driving through there. Its not much worse than rush hour.

Now what does have a very perceptable change is pedestrian and green line traffic. The green line is filled beyond crush load, enough that I can't get on at Hynes. Pedestrians flood everything from the landmark center to the pru, and the bars in the area are packed.

An Assembly soccer stadium would have the same, if not more of a pedestrian draw. Soccer is going to be pulling in many more fans from the inner city (students and, for lack of a better term, immigrants) than baseball. Assembly, if its built out on par with the renderings, should have a similar feel to the Fenway, encouraging similar pre and post game revelry.

Ill say this for Boston, it does sports better than any other place I can think of. Other than Foxboro, not one of our venues is your typical parking/ghetto neighborhood drive in and gtfo arena.

 

[HalcyonEra]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

I think Kraft knows he needs a purpose-built stadium close to downtown and I don't think he'll need much of a carrot to build it. {EDIT I suspect the public's contribution will not be to the stadium's cost, but to the cost beefing up roads and transit near wherever it ends up}

The 1950/60/70s "multisport" stadiums (Shea, RFK, Baltimore's Memorial) were failure because they failed the fans. It turned out that stadiums had to work for the fans in a lot more ways than just a seat. They had to match their demographic.

Foxboro and the Pats are both good for an audience that is whiter, richer, older, suburban, corporate, auto-oriented, and good for a crowd of 68,000 on 10 Sunday afternoons per year. Its OK for weekend football that the stadium is in the middle of nowhere, but not for Soccer.

But like baseball, hockey, and basketball, Soccer is best played on weeknights and "downtown" , and ideally, on top of transit in a venue close to people's weekdays and sized to sell out every day, not just to max out during playoffs.

I bet Kraft would take a 40k stadium...smaller than Red Bull's 50k in the same way that Fenway Park seats only 37k vs Yankee Stadium's 50k. You make your money (back) selling out games night after night, not over-sizing your venue.

I'm more convinced than ever that Kraft will do a stadium that seats 40k, and put it someplace where soccer fans can get there via transit.

Regarding the Pats, I would disagree somewhat with the demographics of the NFL as I think Foxborough is horrible place for a stadium, especially in terms of infrastructure. Don’t forget how they got there in first place. Billy Sullivan was not your typical NFL owner in terms of wealth. They bounced around various venues in Boston during the 60s and he ultimately was able to build Schaefer Stadium, nothing more than a glorified high school field, for $6M.

In the mid 90's, Kraft, Menino and Weld wanted to build a stadium in the Seaport District (I still refuse to call that area the South Boston Waterfront). The Herald leaked the news along with a salacious headline of “Backroom Deal” or something like that. The old bats of Southie absolutely freaked out, and the local Pols slammed it down. 5 years later, the demographics of Southie had changed and most were then in favor of one. But by then it was too late.

I firmly believe that if they had been able to make a formal announcement about the project with all of the plans thought out, we would have world class facility in the city and close to public transit and the Pike extension / I-93. And I don’t think the typical “whiter, richer, older, suburban” crowd would be so prevalent.

 

[akmags]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

In what sense do developments get too big for their own good? Traffic? Other than that, this does not have the other downsides that developments in the 'burbs have (school overcrowding? sprawl?).

I think the good news for a soccer stadium would be that it would not be an office or retail use and so would tend to use the roads and transit at a time when they arent' busy. In that sense, it seems very complementary.

Not just traffic, but general infrastructure. Each mode of transit whether it be via highway, local road, or public transit has a capacity. I would compare it to adding people to a building without increasing air flow. Eventually people begin to suffocate.

I’m not anti-development or against this potential project by any means, but unless the State or the city of Somerville are going to look at how to increase local capacity for infrastructure, you will slowly notice the area suffocate. We often tend to look at development and say ‘yay! Density’ but we often miss the ramifications that density presents. Public transit may be right at the doorstep of this project, but even that has its limitations as we see during Red Sox games on the green line.

 

[mass88]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

I am a soccer fan that has very little interest in the MLS(for multiple reasons). I follow the European leagues(specifically the Premiere League and Bundesliga). Anyways, one of the reasons I have little interest in going to a Revs game in the atmosphere. It's pretty crappy when you have 15,000 fans in a stadium that seats a little over 68,000. It doesn't help that Gillette is already far too open and noise sails right out. Unless the Revs starting averaging 35-40,000 a game, they're never going to have a decent atmosphere down in Foxboro.

Build a nice 20-25,000 seat stadium inside of 128 and things will surely pick up.

The stadium can be used for concerts, hosting mens and womens national team games, high school sports, etc.

 

[choo]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

Regarding the Pats, I would disagree somewhat with the demographics of the NFL as I think Foxborough is horrible place for a stadium, especially in terms of infrastructure. Don’t forget how they got there in first place. Billy Sullivan was not your typical NFL owner in terms of wealth. They bounced around various venues in Boston during the 60s and he ultimately was able to build Schaefer Stadium, nothing more than a glorified high school field, for $6M.

In the mid 90's, Kraft, Menino and Weld wanted to build a stadium in the Seaport District (I still refuse to call that area the South Boston Waterfront). The Herald leaked the news along with a salacious headline of “Backroom Deal” or something like that. The old bats of Southie absolutely freaked out, and the local Pols slammed it down. 5 years later, the demographics of Southie had changed and most were then in favor of one. But by then it was too late.

I firmly believe that if they had been able to make a formal announcement about the project with all of the plans thought out, we would have world class facility in the city and close to public transit and the Pike extension / I-93. And I don’t think the typical “whiter, richer, older, suburban” crowd would be so prevalent.

DRINK!

 

[Arlington]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

Still, football stadiums--used just 10 times a year--are not a good use to squat on top of great transit the other 355 days (or every single workday). Transit is just too expensive to have spaces near it sit intentionally empty as football stadiums do.

I think it natural that they end up in the same kind of place(s) that Six Flags do... suitable for weekend auto trips...where land is cheap and parking for 60k can be cheaply provided. They just aren't an "urban" use.

And on the flip side, baseball, hockey, basketball and soccer are used often enough that they can justify the cost of sitting on top of transit.

 

[JumboBuc]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

I bet Kraft would take a 40k stadium...smaller than Red Bull's 50k in the same way that Fenway Park seats only 37k vs Yankee Stadium's 50k. You make your money (back) selling out games night after night, not over-sizing your venue.

I'm more convinced than ever that Kraft will do a stadium that seats 40k, and put it someplace where soccer fans can get there via transit.

The largest soccer-specific stadium in MLS only holds 27k, and most hold between 20k and 22k. Red Bull Arena holds 25k. I'd expect that a new stadium for the Revs would be similarly sized.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Soccer_stadiums

 

[Arlington]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

The largest soccer-specific stadium in MLS only holds 27k, and most hold between 20k and 22k. Red Bull Arena holds 25k. I'd expect that a new stadium for the Revs would be similarly sized.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Soccer_stadiums

Thanks! Not sure how my capacities got messed up, but the ratio point is the same: Boston can probably get by with venues that are 80% the size of their NYC counterpart, so Red Bull Arena, at (roughly) 600'x450' outer dimensions can be scaled down (a little) and fit in the middle of the Sony/Loews Theater site (incl parking), or perhaps shoehorned into the Home Depot + Circuit City site.

 

[davem]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

Not just traffic, but general infrastructure. Each mode of transit whether it be via highway, local road, or public transit has a capacity. I would compare it to adding people to a building without increasing air flow. Eventually people begin to suffocate.

I’m not anti-development or against this potential project by any means, but unless the State or the city of Somerville are going to look at how to increase local capacity for infrastructure, you will slowly notice the area suffocate. We often tend to look at development and say ‘yay! Density’ but we often miss the ramifications that density presents. Public transit may be right at the doorstep of this project, but even that has its limitations as we see during Red Sox games on the green line.

Public transit can be expanded (or in this case just brought up to a state of good repair), the roads should not be used beyond commercial trips for such an inner neighborhood to begin with. In theory, the additional tax revenues of the development go to support the expansions in transit capability. This is something that is not feasible in the suburbs, but is the entire function of a city. See also: Hong Kong, probably the upper limit of urbanization.

 

[mass88]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

Still, football stadiums--used just 10 times a year--are not a good use to squat on top of great transit the other 355 days (or every single workday). Transit is just too expensive to have spaces near it sit intentionally empty as football stadiums do.

I think it natural that they end up in the same kind of place(s) that Six Flags do... suitable for weekend auto trips...where land is cheap and parking for 60k can be cheaply provided. They just aren't an "urban" use.

And on the flip side, baseball, hockey, basketball and soccer are used often enough that they can justify the cost of sitting on top of transit.

A 70,000 seat stadium right in Boston would be used more than 10 times a year. Gillette as it stands now hosts more than 10 events a year. Between concerts, other sporting events (Brazil vs. Portugal for example) and meetings, there usually is pretty good use.


I also think with the infrastructure we have in place, getting to/from the stadium if it were located in South Boston would be a nightmare. The highways and main surface streets in Boston are far too small and narrow to handle the crush of cars that would flood the area. Mass transit would not be used that much considering most people tailgate (need a car) before the games.