After more than two years of rising costs and legal pushback, Mayor Michelle Wu’s $325 million plan to renovate White Stadium in Franklin Park cleared one of its final hurdles Wednesday, allowing the city and a professional women’s soccer team to press ahead with one of the Wu administration’s most ambitious — and polarizing — projects.
The Supreme Judicial Court Wednesday rejected a lawsuit trying to halt the project, ruling the overhaul does not violate an arcane state law that protects public parkland, and handing Wu a major legal and political victory. The stadium renovation has drawn intense scrutiny and criticism, both over the scale of the project and its escalating price tag, and at times figured prominently on the campaign trail during her successful reelection bid a year ago.
The ruling officially also puts an end to a years-long lawsuit to stop the controversial project, brought by the environmental nonprofit the Emerald Necklace Conservancy and a coalition of residents who live in the neighborhoods surrounding Franklin Park.
Work on the site, which has been underway since early 2025, is now officially free to continue. The renovated stadium will serve as a new hub for Boston Public Schools Athletics and the home stadium for the National Women’s Soccer League team Boston Legacy FC.
In its ruling Wednesday, the SJC determined that state lawmakers more than 75 years ago designated the stadium site as a “school building and yard,” not parkland, and therefore the city’s plan to overhaul White Stadium with a private company does not violate state park protections.
At an unrelated press conference Wednesday, Wu said she was “thrilled” with the court’s decision that “this landmark investment in our future can move forward without further delay.”
“Boston should be a place where we can and will do big things that matter for our community, that we can take big swings, we can get things done,” Wu said. “That will open up a world of possibilities for generations to come.”
Boston Legacy FC also celebrated the ruling, calling it a “tremendous victory for Boston Public Schools students, the Franklin Park community, and the future of professional women’s soccer in Boston.”
“The Court’s decision clears the way for completing the White Stadium renovation and delivering a world-class facility that will serve our community for generations,” Jennifer Epstein, the team’s controlling owner, said.
Karen Mauney-Brodek, president of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, said the group was disappointed by the court’s decision and reiterated its call for the city to pursue a smaller, fully public renovation of White Stadium.
Pamela Jones, a Mattapan resident who signed on as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, lamented the ruling will allow for a stadium she said some residents don’t want.
“The communities around Franklin Park want a renovated White Stadium that doesn’t displace the BPS football program, pave over acres of public parkland, and subject neighborhoods to the traffic and other negative impacts of an oversized professional sports complex,” Jones said in a statement.
The SJC has a 130-day guideline to issue its decisions, but last week ordered a waiver on the four-plus-month span, giving itself more time to weigh its decision in the White Stadium lawsuit. Amid that delay, neither the team nor the city had committed to the stadium being ready for some or all of the 2027 season, which begins in February and runs into November.
Wu on Wednesday did not offer an updated target completion date, but said the project is on budget, and hitting its planned construction milestones.
Wu and other supporters have pitched the stadium as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to overhaul the dilapidated facility and give city residents and Boston Public Schools students access to a professional-grade sports facility without taxpayers shouldering the entirety of the redevelopment cost.
The project’s opponents argued the involvement of Boston Legacy FC, a for-profit sports team, would illegally allow a private company to make money off of public parkland, and improperly limit the public’s access to the BPS facility. Critics have said the city should pursue a less expensive and less ambitious renovation plan for the site, and fund it with city dollars and donations to keep the facility solely for public use.
The Emerald Necklace Conservancy and a coalition of residents first sued to stop the project in February 2024. The plaintiffs argued that the public-private plan to renovate the stadium violates a state constitutional amendment called Article 97, which protects public parkland and requires approval from two-thirds of the state Legislature to sell or make changes to a park’s use.
The city argued the stadium will continue to be owned by the city, and primarily used by BPS students and Boston residents, with Boston Legacy FC using the stadium for a maximum of 20 home games and 20 practices each year.
A Superior Court judge ultimately ruled in the city’s favor in April last year, but the plaintiffs appealed the decision.
In its ruling Wednesday, the SJC acknowledged that the stadium land was taken by eminent domain for use as a public park in 1883. But, the court noted, state lawmakers passed legislation in 1947 and 1950 that transferred ownership of that parcel to a public charitable trust known as the George Robert White Fund, allowing the city to build White Stadium.
That legislation “effectively removed the stadium parcel from its previous designation as parkland and made it a school department facility to be maintained by the school committee,” Justice Gabrielle R. Wolohojian wrote for the court, and “allowed the transferred land to be used for any purpose [in line with the provisions of the trust] ... including uses inconsistent with park status.”
Therefore, the stadium land is not subject to Article 97 protections, the court ruled.
One supporter of the renovation, Seth Davis, who lives in Jamaica Plain across the street from Franklin Park with his wife and three daughters, said his family has been following the project for years and feared the lawsuit would slow or kill it.
The court’s ruling is “a relief,” he said.
“I’m hopeful that the renovated stadium will be a much more active place,” Davis added.
The rising price tag for the work has also triggered intense criticism and scrutiny.
Boston Unity Soccer Partners first proposed to make more than $30 million in renovations to the more than 74-year-old stadium in July 2023. But by early 2024, both the soccer team and the City of Boston had bookmarked $50 million for their portions of the project, according to legal documents. The city’s share of the project then rose to $91 million by the end of 2024.
Despite pledging to share an updated cost estimate before the end of 2025, Wu, who won reelection last fall, did not provide a new figure until February, when she announced the overhaul would cost $325 million. Boston Legacy FC is expected to pay about $190 million of that total, while the city will contribute $135 million.
Wu attributed those cost increases to inflation, tariffs, and the rising costs of materials and labor. She also said the higher price tag was driven by expensive design changes to the project, based on feedback from neighbors, Boston residents, BPS families, and other members of the park community.
The team is also expected to pay more than $62 million over the coming years in rent to the city, and for maintenance on the stadium, improvements to Franklin Park, and other community benefits.
Emma Healy of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Niki Griswold can be reached at niki.griswold@globe.com. Follow her @nikigriswold.