The New England Revolution on Friday confirmed that a proposed stadium development at Boston's Bayside Exposition Center site won't move forward at this time due to “forces outside the club’s control.”
That comes according to a statement issued by the Kraft family, who have owned the New England Revolution since 1996. (Full text below.) Discussions had been ongoing with University of Massachusetts officials, as the site is owned by UMass Boston.
The statement indicated that the Krafts had been working on a $250-million stadium proposal for the waterfront site since 2015, with the goal of producing a fully-funded, privately-financed home for the Revs.
The club reinforced they will continue to work on a stadium solution, aiming to provide "our fans and our players a venue they will be proud to call home for generations to come." They've shared a stadium home with the NFL’s New England Patriots in Foxborough, Mass. since debuting as an MLS original in 1996, calling the old Foxboro Stadium home before Gillette Stadium opened in 2002.
Full Statement
“In 2015, we were invited to put together a stadium proposal for the former Bayside Exhibition Center site. Since then, we have invested millions of dollars and thousands of staff hours to design and structure a venue that would benefit UMass Boston, the City of Boston and serve as an asset to the surrounding communities, with an operating plan that would benefit all local constituencies. We were committed to a fully-funded, privately-financed stadium that would have totaled an investment in excess of $250 million. There was also a full-value land lease to UMass that would have provided annual payments to the university. As is the case with any development opportunity, there were numerous hurdles to overcome and we regularly adjusted our plans to cater to the needs of the project. Unfortunately, and for reasons beyond our control, it has been determined that this project is not feasible to pursue on this site at this time. It is our goal to continue to seek development opportunities where we can invest in a soccer specific stadium that will benefit its surrounding communities while giving our fans and our players a venue they will be proud to call home for generations to come.”
—Robert and Jonathan Kraft, Investor/Operators, New England Revolution
