Boston Red Sox Pay Millions in Property Taxes to Boston for Fenway

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Friday, May 29, 2015

GoLocalWorcester News Team

City of Boston tax records show the ownership team that owns the Boston Red Sox pays millions annually to the city in property taxes for 103-year-old Fenway Park and they pay hundreds of thousands more for three other parcels of land.

The same ownership group is leading the effort to move the Pawtucket Red Sox to Providence and asking for tens of millions in state subsidies, and looking in Providence to avoid paying property taxes for decades.

Boston Red Sox ownership group’s Fenway Park has an assessed value of more than $81 million dollars and pays the city of Boston more than $2.4 million in property taxes for the 1912 Fenway Park.  In addition, the Boston Red Sox own three other major parcels that pay almost $1 million more in property taxes:

2 Yawkey Way with a $5,526,206 assessed value that pays $163,133.60

12 Lansdowne Street with a $16,557,902 assessed value that pays $488,789.80

Brookline Avenue parcel with a $5,992,000 assessed value that pays $176,883.84

And, Fenway Park with an assessed value of $81,413,223 and that pays $2,403,318.34

In total, the Boston Red Sox ownership pays more the City of Boston $3,232,125.58 per year according to City of Boston tax data.

Recently, in an editorial in the Providence Journal, Boston Red Sox President/CEO and now front man for the new PawSox ownership group outlined the benefits of a Providence-based park, including off-season events, concerts and more tourism for Providence. Lucchino said, “We can add more than $2.5 million annually to Rhode Island’s revenues,” in benefits but Lucchino and the ownership group have repeatedly in public requested for a multi-decade tax treaty with the City of Providence that would have the owners paying no property taxes.

The New Fenway Park Plan

Lucchino and Jim Skeffington, former President of the PawSox who passed away recently, both outlined that the PawSox needed a modern stadium in Providence or would have to look elsewhere. Specifically, they have attested that the existing McCoy Stadium, which had received approximately $30 million in taxpayer improvements and debt service costs, was insufficient and the team was falling behind other teams in the AAA International League.

{image_3}This similar scenario played out in Boston just before the turn of the century in Boston. The Boston Red Sox ownership group claimed it desperately needed a new stadium, “Citing the economic obsolescence of Fenway Park as the reason, the Boston Red Sox wanted to be in a new stadium by 2003. Without the addition of 10,000 seats, including more luxury suites and other premium seats, the team said it would fall behind other teams in paying the player salaries needed to stay competitive on the field,” wrote the sports website, BaseballPark.com.

“The Red Sox were willing to pay the entire cost of a 44,130 seat replacement for Fenway Park, which was built in 1912 and seated 33,871 in 1999, but wanted public funds for such upgrades as improved transportation. The Red Sox were not considering selling private seat licenses in a new stadium and expected construction to cost about $350 million,” wrote BallPark.com.

In a 1999 Boston Globe article about the proposed new Fenway Park, then-Boston Red Sox President John Harrington said, ``Our plan of finance is not yet complete and I think that’s understandable because of the complex nature of the project.’’

Ultimately, the proposed "New Fenway Park" plan, which had a number of versions, was defeated by neighborhood opposition after requests for a public financing component. Since the existing ownership group have made private investments into Fenway Park which has improved the venue, the seating capacity and dramatically increased revenue. A Mark Yost column in the Wall Street Journal credits the present Red Sox ownership group and Lucchino for avoiding public financing and improving Fenway Park with private dollars:

The credit for what I'd call the Tax-Free Miracle of Yawkey Way goes to the Red Sox ownership group, which bought the team in 2002 and pledged to stay in Fenway. "We knew the perils of asking for public money," Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino said. Namely, that fans get annoyed when teams ask taxpayers to build a stadium, and then raise ticket and concession prices on the very people who paid for it.

The key to transforming Fenway, a hemmed-in urban ballpark last renovated in 1934, was to build out as well as up. "What we perceived to be constraints were more elastic than we thought," Mr. Lucchino said.

Related Articles

• Why Isn’t Worcester Bidding for the Pawtucket Red Sox?
• City Councilors Make Pitch for PawSox to Come to Worcester
• 10 Things That Need to Happen to Get PawSox to Worcester
• Will Worcester Look Bad if New Bedford Ends Up with PawSox?
• What’s Next for the PawSox?
• Red Sox Report: Is All Well Up At Fenway?
• Ask a Bartender: Which Fenway Park Bars are Best?

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