Big leaf energy planned for new White Stadium

The group working to bring professional women's soccer to Boston yesterday filed detailed plans for its part of the overhaul of the decaying, fire-ravaged White Stadium in Franklin Park, which includes a new soccer pitch, replacement of bleachers with individual seats, a separate dining area including room for food trucks, a year-round restaurant and a beer garden and overhanging shade over the seats designed as an homage to the surrounding greenery.

In its filing with the BPDA, Boston Unity Soccer Partners says the leaf motif is part of its goals to both fit in with the historic, leafy nature of Franklin Park - both through design and through work to preserve existing mature trees nearby while rooting out invasive ones - and helping to create a new gathering spot for Bostonians.

Boston Unity and the city plan to split the costs of rebuilding the 1949 stadium - with Boston Unity responsible for the western-side bleachers, the field, concessions and a scoreboard, and the city the eastern bleachers and facilities meant specifically for student athletes. The city has yet to release its plans for re-doing the eastern bleachers and other parts of the project.

Boston Unity says the renovations will include new seats behind one end of the field, increasing its capacity to 11,000 fans.

The Proponent envisions a new White Stadium experience that creates an 'urban room' where the community comes together in the round, gathering with their children and grandchildren, neighbors and friends, watching a team that is diverse, mirroring themselves. Seating on all four sides on game days, light poles with banners at the north and south end lines, a new scoreboard, and the West and East Grandstand and The Grove improvements combine to deliver a complete container of urban energy. The Grove is fundamentally a communal space, designed for year-round entertainment, eating, drinking, playing, and relaxing in an atmosphere of neighborhood connection. Adding the use of The Grove to the south of the stadium allows for pre- and post-game celebrations at the Project Site on Game Days, engaging the fans and spreading out their movements over time to reduce peak crowd flows in and out of the park.

Boston Unity hopes to begin 22 months of construction this spring, with the stadium ready for use in early 2026.

The BPDA has scheduled the first meeting of the Impact Advisory Group - local residents and business owners - for Jan. 3.

Little parking is planned for the site. Instead, Boston Unity says it will rent parking lots in areas away from the stadium and provide shuttle service to and from them. Also planned: Game-day shuttle buses to and from the Orange Line stops at Jackson Square and Forest Hills, although the group says it expects many of its fans to walk the half mile from Green Street station. Shuttle buses will arrive and depart via the Jamaica Plain side of the stadium, according to the proposal.

Two ride-share pickup and drop-off areas are planned, one for Playstead Road next to the stadium, one along Seaver Street.

Boston Unity says it will retain the current 45-foot-tall "clamshell" wall along the western bleachers but otherwise completely gut the stands on that side to build new seating, concession stands and interior facilities:

The design team looked for options for the West Grandstand that could fit in and balance with the original White Stadium, while replacing the bleacher seating with bucket seats and adding an exciting new rooftop form. The design concept is based on the form of a leaf, inspired by Franklin Park and Frederick Law Olmsted, where each design element is specific to this special place. The arcadian curves in the site plan and in the building additions come from the spirit of nature. More than a stylistic approach, it is meant to be an ecological statement of how we work with the land, rather than against it.

The design intentions of the new West Grandstand architectural elements – such as the concourses, vertical circulation, seating bowl, roof canopy, and balconies – are to integrate them with the existing architecture of the West Grandstand. Its Art Deco & Bauhaus style inspires simple geometric forms, such as rectangular elevator cores, curving staircases, and sinuous balconies.

While the exterior design of the additions will take its cues from the clamshell wall, both Art Deco and the Bauhaus styles were also well known for being holistic movements of art, typography, and interior design with colorful gestures and geometric patterns. On the public concourses and in the private interior team spaces, the designers will include murals, tiling, and lighting that is a modern interpretation of Art Deco and Bauhaus design.

The filing also details the new canopy over the seats:

The weather cover for the seats is designed to resemble a series of leaves that emerge from a multi-pronged column structure. Its curved shape, which arches from the center point down toward the far edges of the seating bowl, responds to the symmetrical cornice of the clamshell wall and hovers behind and above it. As the canopy design has developed, the architectural vocabulary has been refined into leaf-like forms that will glow on game nights.

The filed plans detail not just the look of the new stadium, but what Boston Unity says it will do in addition to fielding its as yet unnamed National Women's Soccer League team, to promote both youth sports and the surrounding neighborhoods.

Boston Unity says it will pick up the $400,000 annual cost of maintaining the grass soccer field, which will be available for use by BPS teams - except football - and for other public sporting events, such as the BAA half-marathon and Special Olympics.

The group says it will also offer scholarships and internship and mentoring programs for BPS students:

The Proponent is committed to new summer internships in sporting, sports medicine, physical therapy and sports management for Boston youth and will also encourage corporate sponsors and other partners to similarly provide internships and focus hiring efforts on the surrounding communities.

They add they will also create an annual grant program aimed at promoting businesses along Seaver Street and Blue Hill Avenue and in Egleston and Mattapan squares, help local girls' athletic programs and bolstering Franklin Park.

Boston Unity pledged that at least 50% of the food sold in the stadium and in the Grove would come from local providers, in particular, operators of food trucks. Time on the scoreboard will be reserved to promote businesses in the area around the stadium, and:

The Project will provide opportunities to local designers to help create team merchandise that is distinctly Boston and culturally specific to the neighborhoods of Franklin Park.

Where possible, existing White Stadium elements will be cleaned and preserved:

Individual seats instead of bleachers:

White Stadium filings and meeting schedule.