Boston Mayor Michelle Wu announced Friday a new estimated price tag for the redevelopment of White Stadium that bumps the public share of the project up to $135 million.
The project’s growing cost to taxpayers became a looming question during last year’s mayoral campaign, and this latest figure represents nearly triple the initial estimate given two years ago.
In total, the public-private reconstruction plan, made in partnership with the forthcoming Boston Legacy Football Club women’s soccer team, is now estimated to cost $325 million. Boston Legacy F.C. has agreed to cover $190 million of the project’s construction costs.
In a video announcement via BlueSky on Friday, the mayor, who has battled a vocal band of opponents while moving the plan forward, emphasized that the project will give Boston students a new state-of-the-art facility and draw $252 million in private funding over the next 15 years from Boston Legacy F.C., including construction costs, operations costs, rent and other payments. Wu billed it as “the largest community and public benefits deal” in the city’s history.
“White Stadium will be a new, public resource in the heart of our city, not just for sports games, but ready to host community events and celebrations and owned by all of us,” Wu said in the 2-minute video.
“BPS and the community will get to use the new White Stadium every day of the year, even on the up to 20 days when there’s a pro soccer game,” Wu said. “That means the stadium will be open for games and practices every day after school, in every season and throughout the summer.”
Later, during a press conference, Wu pointed to “tariffs and other policies,” escalating labor costs, and community input as contributing to the increased taxpayer-funded portion of the project.
“I would say the primary driver of why this project got more expensive is because we heard from community members that there were all of these dreams and hopes and goals, and we decided to make the project better and therefore more expensive in response to that,” said Wu, noting that the project now features a professional-grade grass field, more aesthetically pleasing buildings to house locker rooms, strength training spaces and a community room with a kitchen.
“This is also tied to the federal policies that we have seen,” she said, alluding to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics. “When we see people who are no longer coming to work, coming to school, going to the doctor, that has affects everywhere and it definitely is a component.”
Wu appeared alongside several advocates, local elected officials and a representative from Boston Legacy F.C. who praised the project as a long and sorely needed public investment.
“I know some of this argument has come down to how much money is being spent, but I arrive as an elected official saying, the money is well worth it when we’re spending it for our children,” said State Rep. Russell Holmes, adding that he would like the area around Franklin Park to be “a neighborhood that you drive to and not just through.”
“I certainly want Mattapan, Roxbury, Dorchester to be on the map as a destination, and this stadium helps to do that,” Holmes said.
Jennifer Epstein, the controlling manager of Boston Legacy F.C., said that, to date, $43 million in contracts have been awarded to minority and women-owned businesses, with many based in the park’s surrounding neighborhoods.
“We also recognize that true success extends beyond today,” said Epstein. “It will be measured when neighbors see that this project delivered on its promises, when White Stadium is once again regarded as the gem of the city, and generations from now, when Boston students are still using and benefiting from this stadium just as they always should have been.”
Wu’s announcement addresses a key critique lobbed by her former mayoral opponent Josh Kraft, who during the 2025 campaign accused Wu of failing to contain the cost of the redevelopment and obscuring what the public would pay. Kraft cited an alleged internal memo with a taxpayer figure of $170 million for the project. Wu disputed that figure, which she said likely represented a worst-case scenario projection for the project’s cost.
