Boston’s TD Garden is the Boston Celtics’ house, but for how much longer? iStock photo
The Boston Globe’s Gary Washburn signaled the proper start of a new real estate game a little over a week ago with an intriguing nugget at the end of a routine column.
Buried at the bottom, well below a lengthy item about the Celtics huge payroll and standouts in the NBA’s Summer League, Washburn dropped a potential bombshell.
“It’s believed that soon-to-be governor Bill Chisholm will look into the construction of a new arena since the Celtics do not own TD Garden,” Washburn wrote. “The most profitable means for an NBA owner in today’s landscape is arena ownership.”
Given Washburn’s status as a plugged-in, veteran Celtics and NBA beat writer, his item – really an extended paragraph – became the fodder for a frenzy of speculation among the legion of sports bloggers out there, as well as some pubs that deal with sports business.
Big Financial Incentive to Move
Private equity billionaire Bill Chisholm and a group of investors are expected to close on their $6.1 billion deal for the Celtics in the next few weeks, the Globe has reported elsewhere.
It’s a huge amount of money to pay. And it won’t include the Garden, which is controlled by concessions king and Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs and his company, Delaware North.
Chisholm, in one of his few public remarks on the team, attempted to simultaneously tamp down on arena speculation while also propping the door every so slightly open.
“We’ll get to thinking about that. But it’s also a decision that’s down the road,” Chisholm said back in March, per Boston.com.
Both Chisholm and Wyc Grousbeck, the outgoing lead owner, have made much of the fact that the Celtics current lease at the Garden runs through 2036, arguing any decision would be years away.
What Chisholm and Grousbeck don’t appear to understand is that when it comes to the stadium speculation game, the genie is already out of the bottle.
Short of a flat-out declaration that the Celtics will never, ever, consider leaving the Garden, accompanied by a 200-year-lease renewal, the team’s new owner can expect spates of stories and online speculation over the coming years.
Stories about potential new sports stadiums, where they might be built and even what they might look like, is one of the favorite story lines of the local media, from mainstream publications to talk radio to sports bloggers.
And if Chisholm truly believes he has years to quietly work things before unveiling plans for a flashy new arena, or negotiating a new and better deal at the Garden, well then he truly is in for a rude awakening.
Scott Van Voorhis
Nothing Stays Secret in Boston
In the world of Boston development, a decade is not a very long time, and that’s just when it comes to projects like new apartment towers or lab and office buildings.
When it comes to something as potentially controversial and politically charged as a massive new sports arena, it could take not just years, but decades to find the right site with the necessary political support and backing.
Think I’m exaggerating? Well consider then the long hunt by the billionaire Kraft family for a site on which to build a new stadium for the New England Revolution.
The Krafts began looking at sites in Boston back in the early 2000s and have only finally, in the last year or so, appeared to have landed a site – not in Boston, but on the Everett waterfront.
The Red Sox began thinking about sites for a new ballpark at the end of the 1960s before landing on a plan in the late 1990s to tear down old Fenway and build a new stadium next door on land the team, with help from City Hall, was to have seized from local business owners.
We all know how that turned out.
So if Chisholm, the new Celtics owner, has any intention of seriously exploring the possibility of building a new home for his team, he’d better start looking now.
And if he’s looking for a list of sites, Chisholm might want to check out archBoston, a favorite discussion platform for local kibitzers and a few development, design and construction types.
The last time I checked, the real estate geeks on archBoston were well into vetting sites of a new Celtics arena in wake of that item from Washburn, the Globe’s Celtics beat writer.
Potential arena sites in their eyes include over the tracks leading into South Station, the Hynes convention center in the Back Bay, and a wharf on the East Boston waterfront.
So welcome to Boston, Bill Chisholm. And good luck with the stadium speculation games, for you’ll certainly need it, whether you intend to build anything or not.
Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist and publisher of the Contrarian Boston newsletter; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
