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

Ron Newman said:
Might be a good use for some of the McCourt (now Fox) land.
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that's exactly what I was thinking and with a 20,000-25,000 seat stadium, there would still be plenty of land left. Plus, there would be a beautiful parcel to develop where the Bank of America Pavilion currently stands. The Bank of America Pavilion is limited in the acts it can book due to its capacity. A new soccer stadium (if built with concert use in mind) could really put a dent in the Tweeter Center's business and most people would be thrilled not to have to drive 45 minutes only to get stuck for an hour trying to get out of the Tweeter Center parking lot after the show. Plus, think about all the people that will go for dinner/drinks and what not before and after a game/concert. Money in the bank for the city...
 
The Revs games I've seen in Foxboro were actually pretty good with lots of youth soccer leagues and a healthy vocal fan club. That only means they could be even better in a dedicated stadium.

In the early 20th century the US was a great football power and most children are still taught how to play in school. Robert Kraft is no dummy so likely he is banking on the sport continuing to grow nationally and that there is money to be made.

The concerts are the wild-card...I imagine owning two large non-competing venues in this area could be booked and run cheaper than with different owners.
 
I saw Dave Matthews at Fenway...It was an AWESOME experience, but that place is simply not made for concerts. It was like my middle school gymnasium. You can turn the lights off, put 3 laser lights on circular tracks, and play Truly Madly Deeply, but in the end, it's still the same gym where your fat coach yelled at you for not being able to run 2 miles when he can't even get out of his car to get his Big Mac.
 
I saw Dave Matthews at Fenway...It was an AWESOME experience, but that place is simply not made for concerts. It was like dances at my middle school gymnasium. You can turn the lights off, put 3 laser lights on circular tracks, and play Truly Madly Deeply, but in the end, it's still the same gym where your fat coach yelled at you for not being able to run 2 miles when he can't even get out of his car to get his Big Mac.
 
Looking for ?Magic?: Community backs his team for project
By Scott Van Voorhis
Boston Herald Business Reporter
Saturday, August 5, 2006 - Updated: 08:22 AM EST

A development team featuring former Lakers great Earvin ?Magic? Johnson has emerged as a front-runner for a key site envisioned for a gleaming new Roxbury megaproject.

The group, which pairs a trio of local builders with Johnson?s $900 million investment fund, won the top rating from a community panel weighing the future of the first of a series of important Roxbury tracts to be sold by City Hall. The Heritage Common proposal bested two other competing bids, confirmed Darnell Williams, president of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts and chairman of the neighborhood committee overseeing the Roxbury bidding.

But it may be too early to declare victory.

Major League Soccer, which is eager to build a stadium in Boston for the New England Revolution, could be positioned to make a wild card bid for the site, say observers following the jockeying around the prime Roxbury tract.

Meanwhile, City Hall expressed serious concerns yesterday about Johnson?s bid and its two competing proposals.

Each fell far below the $3-a-square-foot minimum bid price sought for the 8.7-acre building site, said Susan Elsbree, a spokeswoman for the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

?We have some strong concerns. None of the three proposals has met our (financial) requirements,? Elsbree said.

That threat, however, was seen by one executive involved in the process as a prelude to negotiations over price.

The Canyon Johnson Urban Fund and its local partners have proposed a large mixed-use complex, including a hotel, offices, residential units and a large jazz club at the corner of Whittier and Tremont. Johnson?s fund has made a specialty of investing in inner-city neighborhoods, and has won tens of millions in investment money from the Massachusetts state workers? pension fund.

A 15-member panel of nearby property owners and community members gave Johnson?s group the top rating after a meeting Thursday night.

Not faring as well were a pair of competing groups, which won lower grades.

Roxbury-based Elma Lewis Partners had teamed up with the National
Center of Afro-American Artists on a 1.5-million-square-foot building proposal called Ruggles Place. Meanwhile, Madison Park Development Corp. and low-cost housing builder Trinity Financial had proposed their own development, which featured 300 units for Northeastern University students.
 
Somerville Soccer Stadium

From the Herald:


Revolution?s the goal: Somerville talks stadium with Krafts
By Scott Van Voorhis
Boston Herald Business Reporter
Thursday, August 2, 2007 - Updated: 08:18 AM EST

Somerville is emerging as a contender to land what could be the Boston area?s next big major league sports stadium.
Major League Soccer?s New England Revolution and Somerville officials have held preliminary discussions about building a 20,000-plus seat soccer stadium on a site not far from Charlestown, Mayor Joseph Curtatone confirmed.
The 100-acre tract of vacant lots, industrial buildings and rail lines off Innerbelt Road near Interstate 93 has long been targeted by Somerville for redevelopment.
The talks come roughly a year after the Revolution - part of the Kraft family?s sports and business empire that includes the New England Patriots [team stats] - began searching for a stadium site. Robert Kraft recently attended an event held by the Somerville mayor, though Curtatone contends the visit was unrelated to the stadium interest.


?We have had very preliminary inquiries and conversations,? Curtatone said. ?It?s exciting to think that an organization like the New England Revolution and Kraft family would be interested in Somerville, but we are not surprised.?
A new Revs soccer stadium could have between 20,000 and 25,000 seats and cost anywhere from $50 million to $200 million to build, based on other new stadiums Major League Soccer has built around the country.
These stadiums are specifically designed for soccer, with fewer seats than big football stadiums, like Gillette Stadium, where the Revs play now.
They also often double as concert venues, one local sports executive says. With a central, urban location like Somerville, the Krafts would immediately become players in the local concert industry and a powerful competitor to the suburban Tweeter Center, which is not far from Gillette Stadium.
The Krafts? interest in Somerville comes after inquiries in Boston as well.
A site in Roxbury targeted by City Hall for redevelopment - near the Ruggles T Station - was for a time considered by some local real estate executives and city officials to have potential as a stadium site. But City Hall recently awarded that tract of land to a nonprofit looking to build an arts complex.
Kraft family executives a few years ago also examined land at a Boston development site near Chinatown.
?We are still talking with a number of communities,? said Brian Bilello, the Revs? chief operating officer. ?Obviously Somerville is one of those communities.?


Personally, I think this is a really, really good idea.
 
And while their at it, make it so it can support the minor league baseball stadium they are proposing in Charlestown. They can use the soccer stadium for both.
 
I doubt it. Combined baseball-football stadiums have gone out of favor, and most have been demolished. A combined baseball-soccer stadium would probably have the same drawbacks. The field dimensions just aren't very compatible. Also, MLS and minor league baseball play during the same months of the year.
 
Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

chumbolly said:
From the Herald:
They also often double as concert venues, one local sports executive says. With a central, urban location like Somerville, the Krafts would immediately become players in the local concert industry and a powerful competitor to the suburban Tweeter Center, which is not far from Gillette Stadium.
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This is the most exciting part of this article. Those who patron the Tweeter Center frequently know how much of a disaster it is from the sound (forget about hearing a concert on the lawn) to getting out of the parking lot after a show. Any venue that can compete with the Tweeter Center and is closer than 45 min from Boston sounds like a good idea to me.
 
A new T-accessible concert location? Well, sure. But it seems redundant with Gilette infrastructurally. Won't this just mean both stadia will sit empty more often than they would if the Pats and Revs played in the same one? I'm straining to see the compelling new need for this.
 
not sure how many fellow soccer fans are out there. but this is a very exciting time for american soccer fans considering the arrival of becks, the boom in soccer-specific stadiums, and the rising status of american soccer in the international circuit!
 
In order to build on 100 acres in this site and not disturb the rail lines, it would require a massive eminent domain taking of maybe 20-30 companies some of which are fairly large in their own right like UPS or MS walker and MGH. The job loss would be massive in comparison to the jobs created for a part time soccer venue. I also remember reading that 70 Inner belt was just rented to a router/server company that plans on making a substantial investment in that building and would seem to want to stay put for sometime.

On a Somerville website it?s been suggested that this space would be better used to create bio-tech and other higher end uses. Somerville always has and always will have Cambridge envy and with projects like stadiums and megaplex theaters it will not be on a par with our richer neighbors to the south anytime soon.
.
 
czsz said:
A new T-accessible concert location? Well, sure. But it seems redundant with Gilette infrastructurally. Won't this just mean both stadia will sit empty more often than they would if the Pats and Revs played in the same one? I'm straining to see the compelling new need for this.
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Soccer is horrible at Gilette. The stadium is too large for soccer and with the American soccer crowds being smaller than what the capacity for these large football stadiums hold--the atmosphere is brutal. I think the average crowd in the MLS was 16,000+ last year and that doesn't translate well into a 68,000 seat football stadium.

In Chicago, they built a soccer specific stadium that seats 20,000 for soccer and 28,000 for concerts. It's supposed to be one of the best places in the US to watch a soccer game. Here's a link to the Chicago Fire's official site for the stadium specs: http://web.mlsnet.com/t100/stadium/ I do find it hard to believe that it only cost $1.7 million to build, but if that's the case then I'd love to see what the Krafts could build for something like $10 million.

As for the football stadium seeing less action, that's the case for most NFL stadiums and there really isn't anything you can do about it, unless they open it up for more concerts. It's funny how they spend close to a billion dollars on these stadiums to host (their primary function) 8 NFL games a year. It's the owners money though and if they didn't make it back, they wouldn't do it.
 
If only the Krafts could've gotten their football stadium built in the city...I hate going to Foxborough.
 
The "turf management system" was only $1.7 million. The total stadium was in excess of $100 million.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Park_(Bridgeview)


BostonSkyGuy said:
czsz said:
A new T-accessible concert location? Well, sure. But it seems redundant with Gilette infrastructurally. Won't this just mean both stadia will sit empty more often than they would if the Pats and Revs played in the same one? I'm straining to see the compelling new need for this.
Click to expand...

Soccer is horrible at Gilette. The stadium is too large for soccer and with the American soccer crowds being smaller than what the capacity for these large football stadiums hold--the atmosphere is brutal. I think the average crowd in the MLS was 16,000+ last year and that doesn't translate well into a 68,000 seat football stadium.

In Chicago, they built a soccer specific stadium that seats 20,000 for soccer and 28,000 for concerts. It's supposed to be one of the best places in the US to watch a soccer game. Here's a link to the Chicago Fire's official site for the stadium specs: http://web.mlsnet.com/t100/stadium/ I do find it hard to believe that it only cost $1.7 million to build, but if that's the case then I'd love to see what the Krafts could build for something like $10 million.

As for the football stadium seeing less action, that's the case for most NFL stadiums and there really isn't anything you can do about it, unless they open it up for more concerts. It's funny how they spend close to a billion dollars on these stadiums to host (their primary function) 8 NFL games a year. It's the owners money though and if they didn't make it back, they wouldn't do it.
Click to expand...
 
czsz said:
A new T-accessible concert location? Well, sure. But it seems redundant with Gilette infrastructurally. Won't this just mean both stadia will sit empty more often than they would if the Pats and Revs played in the same one? I'm straining to see the compelling new need for this.
Click to expand...

this new proposed stadium and Gillette will not compete for the same concerts. The new stadium will seat somewhere around 15,000-20,000 for concerts whereas Gillette is 3-4 times that size and only draws mega-concerts (about 4 or 5 of them a year). This new stadium has the potential to compete with the Tweeter Center for all the summer's touring concert acts (usually 20-30 or more a summer). and those who go to the Tweeter Center frequently for concerts know that it leaves a lot to be desired for a concert venue from the sound, the parking lot situation after the show and location. There is no reason to be having concerts in the TD BankNorth Garden in the summer time yet there are several of them and I would imagine that the promoters who do those shows, would rather have them outside. I believe there is a market in Boston for outdoor concerts that are too large for the Bank of America Pavilion.
 
smw2340 said:
The "turf management system" was only $1.7 million. The total stadium was in excess of $100 million.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Park_(Bridgeview)


Ah, okay I knew that it couldn't have only been $1.7 million but based on the write-up from the team's website it had me thinking that.

Here is it from the Chicago Fire's own website (link posted in my original post) "The stadium opened its doors on June 11, 2006 when the Chicago Fire played its first MLS match on the $1.7 million dollar MLS regulation sized soccer field." Pretty misleading.
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nico said:
If only the Krafts could've gotten their football stadium built in the city...I hate going to Foxborough.
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where would people tailgate in boston???
 
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