By Adam Swift
State Senator Sal DiDomenico provided an update on plans for a new 25,000-seat professional soccer stadium for the New England Revolution on the Everett waterfront at Monday night’s Chelsea City Council meeting.
The state senator reviewed the history of the project to this point and discussed the methods that could be used to alleviate traffic from the stadium in Chelsea, Everett, and surrounding communities.
“The Revolution are proposing to build a soccer stadium on the waterfront in Everett, which currently looks like a place where we normally wouldn’t do any business,” said DiDomenico. “There is a power plant sitting there right now, and the power plant has been decommissioned and it’s basically an empty shell. But what is left of the power plant is dirty soil, dirty water on the waterfront, and for years, that power plant has been polluting our air.”
With the proposal for the soccer stadium, DiDomenico said Everett and the region are trying to turn the page on its industrial past.
“The challenge we had is that the power plant, where it sits today, is on a Designated Port Area (DPA),” DiDomenico.
The state senator said there are about 10 DPAs in the state, and that the one that runs from Everett through Chelsea is one of the largest in the state. With the DPA in place, DiDomenico said there has been little chance to properly develop the area.
“Through legislation, we lifted the DPA on that piece of land where the power plant is today and where the stadium is proposed to go,” he said. “The DPA that was lifted was 8.8 percent of the entire DPA, so there is a much larger DPA that goes beyond that.”
That legislation passed last November, and the official lifting of the DPA is contingent upon the cities of Everett and Boston (which owns a small part of the proposed stadium site) signing an agreement with Revolution owners the Kraft family on a community benefits agreement.
DiDomenico said that if there is not an agreement signed by May 1, it would then go to mediation with the communities. If the agreement was not resolved through mediation, it would then go to arbitration by the end of the year and the arbitrator would then come in to determine what was best for the communities.
One of the big issues that has come up in relation to the possible stadium construction has been the impact on traffic in Chelsea and throughout the region.
Part of the DPA legislation included a requirement that the MBTA put together a plan of how it plans to move 25,000 people to and from the stadium on game and event days.
“There are only 75 parking spaces at the site, and that was by design,” said DiDomencio. “People have varying opinions on if that is good or bad. There is room to put a 10,000-car garage on that site, but by design, we eliminated parking because we know that if you put a garage there with a 10,000 car capacity, you will see more than 10,000 cars trying to get into that garage for every single game and concert.”
To make the stadium project work, DiDomenico said there has to be a robust transit plan.
The proposed transit plan for the stadium and the area includes the long-awaited commuter rail station behind the nearby Encore Casino, which the casino is committed to funding. DiDomenico said the rail station has been delayed because of the slope of the train tracks behind the casino, but that the latest train technology will make the station a reality.
In addition, the MBTA is planning to extend the Silver Line, which currently ends in Chelsea, down Rte. 99 into Everett and the stadium site.
“Also, we have a footbridge that is being built from the Assembly Row station on the Orange Line going to the casino site that will give access to the stadium,” said DiDomenico.
The funding for that project is already in place through the state’s department of transportation and should be completed by 2029, which is when the stadium should be ready to go.
The last component of the transportation plan is a water shuttle on the docks adjacent to the stadium at the four-acre public waterfront part the Krafts have stated they will build and maintain.
“When all this is built out, it will be one of the most accessible transit-created corridors in the entire state,” said DiDomenico. “This area has had no transit really for years, there was no reason to build anything in that area and it has been delayed because there was not a catalyst to make it happen. We knew when we proposed a soccer stadium on that site it would be the catalyst to make all the things that were on paper happen.”
As the project gets underway, DiDomenico said Chelsea will have a voice to make sure it has limited impacts on the community, such as the environmental permitting process.
“There are several steps where the public will be engaged,” he said. “There is a lot of excitement about this project, and I strongly believe this is a great project for our community and our region or I would not have put my name on it and put my reputation on the line and fought for this for almost three years to get it across the finish line.”
District 8 Councilor Calvin Brown asked why Chelsea was not a part of a community host agreement for the project.
DiDomenico noted that there was no designation of a host community in the DPA legislation.
“It is similar to the casino itself,” he said. “Chelsea was not a host community for the casino either, Chelsea was a surrounding community, and we haven’t gotten that far yet (with the soccer stadium). There will be time for Chelsea to have its voices heard, and I will be there as well.”