Photo courtesy of city of Everett

Everett elected officials’ latest legislative maneuver to unlock a redevelopment of the city’s soon-to-shutter Constellation Energy power plant fell short again on Beacon Hill yesterday, victim of discord over a late budget bill.

Everett state Sen. Sal DiDomenico had secured an amendment to the Senate’s version of a $3.1 billion supplemental budget bill that would have removed the power plant site on the Mystic River from the local Designated Port Area, a key step that would allow it to be reimagined as something other than water-related industrial uses.

Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria has long championed the idea of turning the power plant, scheduled to close next year, into a site for New England Patriots and New England Revolution owner The Kraft Group to build a stadium for the latter team on the site as part of a larger destination entertainment district. A previous legislative effort by state Rep. Dan Ryan using a different tactic failed in 2022.

Environmental groups had slammed DiDomenico’s amendment as an end-run around the existing process for such removals that cut the public – and the activists – out of the debate. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu had also signaled her opposition to the move, as the city’s Charlestown neighborhood would have to bear the brunt of car traffic a stadium would create. The site currently has no heavy-duty public transit connection, although the MBTA has floated proposals to extend its Silver Line bus rapid transit network through the area.

And with legislators unable to come to an agreement on the supplemental budget bill before their formal lawmaking session ended last month, and Republicans warning they planned to try and hold the bill up over its $250 million in additional funding for the state’s beleaguered emergency family shelter system, there was no stomach for adding more controversial provisions to the mix.

“We didn’t want to have this issue hold up the rest of the bill, and there will be other opportunities,” Senate Ways and Means Committee Chair Michael Rodrigues said.

But while DeMaria’s dream of seeing the waterfront site electrify soccer fans, instead of local homes and businesses, may be stalled, the city says he hasn’t given up the idea, arguing it’s the best way to marshal money for what’s likely going to be a significant environmental cleanup and pay for more mass transit in his city.

“As the leader of an Environmental Justice community, plagued for decades by the detrimental health impacts created by giant industrial polluters, I am disappointed that the legislation has not advanced. I am going to continue to advocate to State leaders that a lower income, minority-majority community like Everett deserves the chance to explore such a transformational economic development opportunity,” he said in a statement emailed to Banker & Tradesman. “While I have stated this before, I feel the need to reiterate: the removal of the parcel from the DPA, which was the focus of the legislative amendment, would not approve a stadium project on the site. It would simply allow a proposal to be put forward locally, at which point a robust public engagement process would commence.”

Everett is also working with The Davis Cos. to redevelop Exxon Mobile’s former gasoline tank farm near the power plant site into what a conceptual plan indicated could include 4.2 million square feet of multifamily housing, manufacturing, life sciences, retail, office space and a hotel

Material from State House News Service was used in this report.