There is so much we love about this community, our home: we have unbelievably strong values. We fiercely advocate for and lift up one another. We believe in a city that makes good choices, and in JP, we live those values everyday.
While these things are what make us incredible, sometimes our loud enthusiasm can stifle opinions that are not the same as ours, and as local business owners and residents, it can be scary to contribute our voices. In the spirit of encouraging positive dialogue and compassionate communication, we want to speak about a topic that seems to be quite a challenging and divisive one in our neighborhood, one that deserves as much of our attention as we can give it: the White Stadium project.
The two of us live a five-minute walk from White Stadium. We love to take our kids for walks through Franklin Park in all its seasons. We believe that having access to such vast and beautiful green space is one of the biggest assets of living in our neighborhood. Three years ago, we became local business owners, taking up ownership of Ula Cafe. Being able to embed ourselves within the fabric of JP and Roxbury’s wider community has truly been one of our most cherished undertakings. We love being able to use Ula as a way to support other small and local businesses, employ great people, unite our neighborhood, and provide a safe space for others.
It is in this context, as local residents as well as local business owners, that we take the development of White Stadium very seriously. Over the last few weeks, we have heard opinions voiced against the development of this stadium, and we understand those concerns. There is a lot of fear and anger in our community about some undeniable challenges: the high cost of construction, the rapid progression, and the deprioritization of the Boston Latin and Boston Latin Academy football teams at the hands of the NWSL season. These concerns come from a deep care for our neighborhood and a desire to preserve and protect it.
While they weigh heavily on the “cons” side of our “pros and cons” list, there are also some critical points that we should add to our nuanced understanding of the White Stadium project’s “pros”. We believe that after taking these points into account, you may find yourself in the position that we’re in, of enthusiastically supporting the rebuild of White Stadium. We believe other residents feel the same way, even if they haven’t spoken about publicly.
It’s time to tell you why. Here are four reasons why we believe the proposed White Stadium project would benefit our community:
- We can agree that White Stadium needs to be rebuilt, and soon. In our time living in Boston we have never seen a public project move at the speed of private funding. Public-private partnerships allow for development to happen at a swifter pace. We are certain that without this funding, it will take not just years, but decades, for White Stadium to be rebuilt. The time lost will come at the cost of not just us, but our kids and the generations that follow us. A real concern is that our students will continue to play in a decrepit stadium and get hurt. The stadium can be shut down. While some may balk at the increasing price of the project, we all know almost no construction project comes in at or below its expected cost. That doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t happen. That means getting a partner like the NWSL is perhaps our best-case scenario in making sure that this stadium is completed in a reasonable timeline, saving money and serving our students now rather than students 30 years from now.
- Many more BPS students will have a state-of-the-art facility on their hands. White Stadium is failing our students. It’s not ADA compliant and many teams, like track, cannot meet there because it’s unsafe. The ability to offer our high school students a world-class arena where they can play is far more than what they would ever get on the city’s limited budget. A challenge of this new stadium is that some of our high school teams would share the space and time with the NWSL. This challenge can be met by a compromise of the stakeholders and community. The trade off is a new facility that is light years ahead of what our football teams have now, not to mention the opportunity that other BPS students playing other sports will have. Track teams will be able to practice and have meets. Basketball and tennis will enjoy brand new courts. A new community room will create space for neighborhood and community activities and programming. The stadium will be one of three carbon-neutral stadiums in the country. This trade off of sharing a stadium during the NWSL’s lease actually offers more opportunity to more BPS students and the community.
- The surrounding Franklin Park will receive massive investment each year, reinvigorating our city and community’s green space and making it functional for many. The jewel of the Emerald Necklace was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead to be a functional gathering space for our whole city. Yet bad lighting, poor pedestrian pathways, and constant motorbike use are all issues we face with Franklin Park daily. Developing this stadium creates an opportunity to bring life back to our city’s biggest park, not only because of the community activities that will happen in the stadium, but also because Boston Unity Soccer will invest $500,000 per year into maintenance of Franklin Park and other community initiatives. Not only that, but Boston Unity has also committed to adding donation options on every ticket sold at White Stadium. Now, visitors to our park will have an opportunity to reinvest in our park, redirecting massive quantities of funds from the suburbs into our neighborhood. With this investment, Franklin Park will grow greener than ever before.
- We have an opportunity to invest in women’s sports in an unprecedented way. Did you know that the world’s first stadium EVER constructed for a women’s sport was built in March 2024? When Beth visited CPKC Stadium in Kansas City earlier this year, which hosts the NWSL team the Kansas City Current, she was absolutely blown away by this fact. Being in a stadium that was created for women’s sports, with eager parents attending with their daughters and sons, with women bartenders and a beautifully stocked nursing room and an artistic homage to the first U.S. women’s national soccer team in 1984 brought her to tears. We shouldn’t have to tell you that women are historically underfunded and underinvested. It’s one thing for a public space to be owned by a national bank. But building a stadium in partnership with a professional women’s sport, while maintaining ownership by the City and primary use by BPS, is an absolutely historic moment for Boston. This is a partnership with one of the best private partners the city could possibly ask for – a partnership that elevates women and women’s sports in a way most of the world still has yet to do. If you followed the “Too Many Balls” controversy and how the NWSL listened and pulled back on the campaign after community input, what we see is an example of a private partner that cares about and listens to its community. We believe this is an example of the kind of thoughtful partnership we can expect from NWSL for years to come.
These important points must not be lost in the heat of our passion about this project. The thought and intention that the city has put into selecting the right partner, expanding resources for BPS, reinvesting in our park system and elevating women are reasons that, even considering the challenges in our way, this construction will help more than hurt our community. As local residents, we have been invited to dozens of meetings discussing the development of the park and White Stadium. While some have argued that this project is progressing quickly and hasn’t taken public opinion into account, the reality is that the city has been listening to us – and incorporating our feedback – for a long time.
Today, we as a community are at a crossroads: while the project was approved and White Stadium was slated for destruction in January, a lawsuit has shifted the timeline. With the NWSL season around the corner, moving the timeline back poses a critical concern for our partner and we run the risk of losing them entirely. We must not allow this to happen.
If you believe in this project as we do, we urge you to speak up about it and voice your support now before it’s too late. If you disagree, we hope you will consider our points above about why the benefits of this project far outweigh the downsides.
If we are fortunate enough to be able to progress in this project, it is as important as ever that we continue to hold our city responsible for some of our most important neighborhood tenets:
- We must proactively ensure that the communities immediately around Franklin Park are included in and benefit from this project. Because the neighborhoods surrounding White Stadium are predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods, we must ensure that this construction is supporting and benefitting them. Let’s give BPS students and local residents access to games, events, and stadium amenities at free or significantly reduced rates, much like the BPS Sundays program has done for local museums. Let’s see multilingual facilities, signage, and staff that take into account our neighborhood’s diverse languages, and thoughtful access to the provided community space for local nonprofits and neighborhood initiatives. Let’s invest in useful public transit solutions that make it easy for spectators to access park.
- We must carefully safeguard the livelihoods of local businesses and residents who have long called the surrounding area home and preserve the unique identity of our neighborhood. While the economic benefits of this redevelopment are promising, gentrification is a huge concern in JP and Roxbury. We must proactively advocate for rent stabilization programs, grants, and other initiatives that will help our local businesses, especially those located around Egleston Square and Blue Hill Ave.
For the construction of White Stadium, let’s continue to prioritize the use of equity-focused contractors, inclusive builders, and WMBE businesses to ensure diversity and inclusion in the project, and give local businesses and restaurants the right of first refusal in stadium partnerships. In doing so, we can empower and uplift our local entrepreneurial ecosystem, ensuring that the benefits of the project extend directly to those who are part of our community.
These needs can be met, not when we cancel the project, but when we continue our conversations, stay engaged, and find solutions.
Development is often seen as an expense on the Black and Brown community. What if we use this opportunity to make this partnership an example of a city who listens, a private partner who cares, a community who is lifted up, and local businesses that thrive? What if we demand that of this partnership and our city?
What if we work harder to hear each other and create change that can lift us all?
Marvin Mathelier and Beth Santos
Local residents and owners of Ula Cafe
Editor’s note: The views expressed in this letter represent the authors and are not representative of Ula Cafe employees.
