Josh Kraft calls on Mayor Michelle Wu to cancel Boston's White Stadium lease, Wu's campaign fires back

Gayla Cawley, Boston Herald on Mar 12, 2025

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BOSTON — Boston mayoral candidate Josh Kraft is building on his past calls for Mayor Michelle Wu to halt demolition of White Stadium by now pressing Wu to cancel the city’s lease with the for-profit group vying to bring a new pro women’s soccer team there.

Kraft, per his campaign, is urging Wu to cancel the city’s 10-year lease with Boston Unity Soccer Partners “until a use analysis is conducted and made public that focuses solely on the needs of Boston Public Schools students.”

He said Wednesday that the city should hire an outside expert to conduct such a baseline study, and renegotiate a lease with Boston Unity that has the for-profit group on the hook for “100%” of the stadium costs and amenities that do not directly benefit BPS kids.

“Mayor Wu’s actions are a massive failure of leadership and fiscal stewardship,” Kraft said in a statement. “It makes no sense for the city to be committing over $100 million in taxpayer dollars at White Stadium at a time when the city is increasing taxes on homeowners and delaying other more important priorities.

“It should be alarming to everyone that a use analysis focused specifically on the needs of BPS kids was never conducted.”

Kraft, 57, said Wu should have sought to determine how large of a stadium and what surface would be needed to best serve BPS kids, along with how much field time and amenities like locker, medical and training rooms they would need, and priced that out.

“Mayor Wu should immediately take steps to reset this process so that the needs of Boston Public School students and the taxpayers are put before the interests of the wealthy private investors,” Kraft said. “The secretive and rigged RFP process the mayor engaged in has produced a bad deal for BPS kids, the surrounding communities, and the city’s taxpayers.”

Kraft, the son of billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and former head of his family’s philanthropic arm, repeated his prior calls for Wu to halt demolition at Franklin Park’s White Stadium until the courts can rule on a pending lawsuit that seeks to stop the roughly $200 million public-private plan.

He further urged the mayor to tell city taxpayers who will pay for the demolition and restoration work should the legal challenge be successful. A Suffolk Superior Court trial is set for March 18.

Wu’s campaign fired back, saying Kraft “knows nothing” about the project he’s criticizing.

“Given the hardball tactics and taxpayer subsidies demanded by the Krafts, it’s no wonder Josh Kraft thinks every public-private partnership is a bad deal,” a Wu campaign spokesperson said. “Fortunately, the city has found a partner to cover half the cost to build and all costs to maintain a facility that will be open to thousands of BPS students, coaches, and community more than 345 days per year.

“Josh Kraft should address his own glaring conflicts of interest before criticizing a project he knows nothing about.”

Wu, 40, has taken aim at Kraft’s potential conflict of interest with his family’s involvement in plans to build a new soccer stadium in Everett, which has encountered resistance from the mayor and other Boston officials over traffic and parking concerns in nearby Charlestown.

The city is leasing White Stadium to Boston Unity, which owns the new pro women’s soccer team that would share use of the field with BPS student-athletes and is set to take the pitch in March 2026. Boston Globe CEO Linda Pizzuti Henry is an investor in the team, but is working to back out of the deal.

The plan championed by Wu has divided the community and become a central campaign issue. Taxpayers are on the hook for roughly $100 million, a cost that’s grown in recent weeks.

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