Boston’s top court recently heard arguments that could kill the White Stadium deal

As the state Supreme Court set to decide the fate of Boston’s White Stadium and Boston Legacy FC — the new professional women’s soccer team that will play there — the justices appeared divided during oral arguments Wednesday morning.

The Supreme Court will determine whether the construction of a new stadium shared by Boston Public Schools athletes, the public and a professional football team violates the preservation of Franklin Park and the surrounding area.

In the hearing held on Wednesday morning, seven judges of the court questioned the lawyers of both sides. Supporters and opponents — including neighbors and the Emerald Necklace Conservancy — left cautiously optimistic.

“I thought the judges paid a lot of attention to the arguments of the parties, and I hope it comes our way,” said Alan Lipkind, a lawyer representing opponents of the project, after the hearing. “There is a lot on the line for the Emerald Necklace Conservancy and for all of my clients and surrounding neighbors.”

The original White Stadium opened in 1949 and was used for Boston Public School athletics, but over the decades, it fell into disrepair. The interior was destroyed in a fire more than 30 years ago and has never been renovated. The municipality’s previous efforts to rebuild it had failed due to the expense.

The new stadium, currently under construction, will feature a grandstand dedicated to Boston Public Schools and facilities for Boston Legacy. When it is not being used by the football team or the Boston Public Schools, it will be open to the public.

Boston Legacy, which is playing its inaugural 2026 season at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough and Centerville Bank Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, is responsible for building its grandstand along with other parts of the project.

The team signed an agreement with the city to lease New White Stadium for 20 games per year and one practice the week before each game. They are required to pay the city $400,000 per year in rent and have also agreed to share a portion of the revenue and cover ongoing maintenance costs.

The public school district will retain ownership of the stadium.

A group of individual residents known as the Emerald Necklace Conservancy and the Franklin Park Defenders sued the city and the team in January 2024 to prevent the project from moving forward. They said the redevelopment would have a negative impact on Franklin Park and surrounding residential neighborhoods and argued the city was illegally using a piece of publicly owned parkland for a private, for-profit entity.

After a three-day trial in March 2025, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Matthew Nestor dismissed the case, writing in his decision that the conservancy and other plaintiffs had failed to prove that the White Stadium parcel, owned by the George Robert White Trust, and parkland separate from the rest of Franklin Park were preserved.

Nestor expressly declined to comment on the project’s “benefits or harms” in his decision, writing that “they are simply not relevant to the case.”

The plaintiffs appealed the decision, saying Nestor did not address several of their legal arguments, including the project’s effects on surrounding Franklin Park, the legality of selling alcohol on school-owned property and claims it violated a trust that owns the land.

The case largely hinges on a section of the state constitution adopted in 1972, known as Article 97. A two-thirds vote of the state legislature is required to use publicly owned park and recreation land for any other purpose.

The city contends that Section 97 does not apply to the stadium parcel because it was separated from the rest of Franklin Park before 1972 and is not a park but a school building.

Two acts of the legislature passed in 1947 and 1950 are at the center of the city’s argument. The first allowed the city of Boston to transfer land to the White Fund—established in the will of a prominent local philanthropist—but did not specify any specific piece of land or project. Second, a year after White Stadium opened, the stadium was designated as a school building so that it could receive Boston Public Schools funds.

However, opponents of the project have argued that these actions were not specific enough to meet the requirements of Article 97, which can be applied retroactively. Lipkind said during Wednesday’s hearing that the 1947 act was irrelevant because it did not expressly mention White Stadium, and that the 1950 act was only intended as a funding mechanism.

“There is nothing in that 1950 statute … to cut off the public park purpose of this land,” Lipkind said. “Then it was used as a public park. When it’s not used for school purposes, it’s used by the general public. The land around it is used by the public. There’s no fence saying, ‘This is school property.’ It’s open to the public.”

Justice Gabriel Wolohozian questioned Sammy Nabulsi, a lawyer representing the city, whether the 1950 statute would apply to the new stadium. She pointed out that the language of the law refers to a “stadium,” not a stadium, and questioned whether demolishing an original building to make way for a new structure would no longer be considered the same building.

Nabulsi pushed back, pointing out that the text of the statute also referred to the land the stadium sits on, and that with a historic wall and name preserved, it would still be the same white stadium.

“This stadium existed as a 10,000-seat stadium for the Boston Public Schools from 1949 until it was recently demolished, and after this project is completed, it will be a 10,000-seat stadium for the Boston Public Schools,” he said.

“The city can take this stadium and still, in accordance with the statute, improve it, make changes to it, replace it if replacement is necessary,” Nabulsi added. “That’s exactly what happened here.”

Plaintiffs have also argued that a professional soccer stadium would have a pervasive impact on Franklin Park, thereby violating Section 97. Shuttles will take fans to the stadium on game days, using existing roads through the park, and new utility lines will be placed at the Parkland crossing.

When pressed on this argument by Justice Scott Kafker, Lipkind was unable to provide any examples of cases in which he had decided to violate Article 97. However, he argued that the city’s license to Boston Legacy to use parts of the park for transportation was actually an easement — which prior cases have held would trigger Article 97.

“You’re building a $300 million, very expensive project on an island, no road to get there, no right of way to get there, no public way to get there,” he said. “No one would do that based on a revocable license.”

Justice Delilah Argez Wendland, however, disagreed, saying, “People make bad deals all the time. That’s not how we determine whether something is an easement or a license.”

However, several jurors suggested that they were not persuaded that the project would leave the surrounding protected parkland untouched.

Some judges, however, appeared open to the argument that the project would have no impact on the surrounding protected parkland. When Nabulsi said White Stadium had always been used for sports and large cultural events, and that roads and paths in the park had always been used to access the stadium, Chief Justice Kimberly Budd interjected.

“You’re trying to say it’s going to be the same, and everybody knows it’s not going to be the same,” Budd said. “You have a big crowd. It’s a whole different thing.”

It is not yet clear how the decision against the project will affect the stadium plans, as construction is well underway. Speaking after Wednesday’s hearing, one of the plaintiffs, Renee Stacey Welch, said she wants to see a project that will fit better into the neighborhood.

“We want something that’s for the community, by the community, for our kids and really supports our black and brown kids in the black and brown communities around that park and white stadium,” she said.

Anshi Moreno, a senior policy adviser to Mayor Michelle Wu, said the city’s priority would be to move forward with the planned stadium project along with the football team, but they were “committed” to providing something for Boston Public Schools students.

“With our partner, it makes the possibilities and opportunities much greater,” Moreno said. “So we’re hopeful that we can maintain the partnership and maintain the maintenance support that we have. So we’re going to remain hopeful, but we’re always going to make sure our students are well served.”

The court usually issues a decision on the case within 130 days of hearing oral arguments.

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