As any news report will tell you, Boston is a tough place to make the leap from renting to buying. Under the new stewardship of Bill Chisholm and partners, could the Celtics already be eying a site for a future arena away from TD Garden?
The Boston Globe’s Catherine Carlock noted this week, “Lately the rumor mill has begun churning anew” regarding the possibility that Chisholm is interested in building his own arena.
“The latest rumored location? Outside South Station, on land currently occupied by the US Postal Service annex along Fort Point Channel,” Carlock writes.
“Having played atop North Station for 80 years, the Celtics know better than most the value of linking a sports arena and a train station. They’ve also watched the Jacobs family, which owns the Bruins and Delaware North, build up the area, with the $1.1 billion Hub on Causeway complex and its new entrance into the Garden alongside a diving Bobby Orr captured in bronze.”
The Celtics exchanged hands for a cool $6.1 billion last spring, with the league’s approval sealing the deal in August.
WEEI’s Greg Hill shared “scuttlebutt” he heard around the deal’s closing last year on ‘The Greg Hill Show.’
“On Bill Chisholm and if he is to get a new stadium, where it might be – that 31-acre parcel between South Boston and the Seaport which was going to be the big Gillette campus,” Hill said.
Almost a year later, the biggest question surrounding the team is whether Jaylen Brown and his impending $57 million contract will be on the roster, (and payroll), come training camp. Brown’s name has been floated in multiple trade reports and rumors since the Finals wrapped.
But Brown’s contract may be a bigger hurdle in moving him for what he’s worth – basketball-wise – than keeping him on the team, considering his immense production and continued growth year-over-year. Besides, as detailed by Carlock in her report, the Celtics have a decade left on the lease they signed at the Garden. Moving Brown for financial considerations for something that may not break ground for at least the better part of a decade feels unlikely.
Most arenas utilized by NBA teams are owned by either the team’s private ownership group or a government municipality, (as is the case with Sacramento’s Golden 1 Center and Memphis’ FedEx Forum). The Celtics’ setup with the Bruins is a bit of an outlier, but not the only unusual arrangement in the league. The Crypto.com center, the home of the Lakers, is owned by the Anschutz Entertainment Group, which owns 50% of the Los Angeles Kings but only a minority share in the basketball team.
Another question facing the Celtics’ ownership group would be how quickly they could reap the financial benefits of a huge investment in an arena by filling it with other tenants and acts in the NBA offseason. Delaware North is surely buoyed by the Celtics’ lease, but the so-called “blue dot fever” has made headlines this summer – a trend in which big musical acts have trimmed down – or entirely cancelled – their tours, due to ticket prices outpacing both consumer demand and budget. And despite cries for a Boston-based WNBA team last summer, that league has yet to create a team in the Bay State.
For the near future, the bull gang will continue to lay the parquet above North Station, but it’s worth musing where banners will hang in the decades to come.
