The state’s highest court is set to take up a lawsuit that seeks to block Boston’s public-private rehab of White Stadium for a professional women’s soccer team.

The lawsuit was docketed by the state Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday, which was seen as a victory by the plaintiffs, Emerald Necklace Conservancy and a group of Franklin Park neighbors, who had appealed a lower court’s ruling against their claims, and in favor of the city and Boston Unity Soccer Partners, in October.

“The White Stadium/Franklin Park case raises important questions about the state’s constitutional protections for public park and recreation land,” Renee Stacey Welch, a Jamaica Plain resident and plaintiff, said in a statement. “Those legal questions have massive implications not just for Franklin Park and Boston, but for public parkland throughout Massachusetts.

“This case matters for young people in Boston today, and for future generations all across the state,” Welch added. “We are glad that the Supreme Judicial Court will take up this important case, and we look forward to defending Massachusetts’ public land protection laws before the Commonwealth’s highest court.”

The plaintiffs allege that the city and Boston Unity’s planned use for White Stadium would privatize protected parkland in violation of Article 97 of the state constitution.

Article 97, approved by voters in 1972, requires two-thirds approval from the state Legislature for other uses for land and easements taken or acquired for conservation purposes.

Suffolk Superior Court Judge Matthew Nestor disagreed that such protections applied in this instance, and ruled in favor of the city and Boston Unity in April, following a three-day trial. The plaintiffs appealed the ruling in October.

Mayor Michelle Wu’s office took the SJC docketing as leading to a final ruling.

“Boston Public Schools student-athletes have waited for decades for this state-of-the-art reconstruction,” a city spokesperson said in a statement. “We are pleased that the SJC will make a final ruling while our construction proceeds.”

Boston Legacy Football Club, the new National Women’s Soccer League team owned by Boston Unity and set to share use of a reconstructed White Stadium with BPS student-athletes, also welcomed the SJC’s decision to take up the case.

“Boston Public Schools students and the communities around Franklin Park have long deserved this kind of generational investment,” Boston Legacy spokesperson Sara Rooke said in a statement. “We are proud to help deliver a modern venue for the entire city and remain confident in the trial court’s previous ruling in full support of the renovation of White Stadium.

“We look forward to the SJC’s final decision as construction continues,” she added.

The city’s public-private plan to rehab White Stadium has proved to be divisive in the community, with concerns tied to traffic, parking and environmental issues that critics say will be exacerbated by an 11,000-seat professional soccer stadium.

The ever-escalating price tag has been a main source of contention, with taxpayers on the hook for the city’s half of the $200 million and counting plan. The city last estimated its liability at $91 million last December, up from the $50 million taxpayers were initially projected to pay when the stadium plan was announced.

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Mayor Wu has said the city’s payment is likely to increase again, due to federal tariffs that are driving up the cost of steel and other construction materials.

Wu said during her reelection campaign that she would release final taxpayers costs by the end of this year, but her office indicated last week that the figure would not materialize until next year, when all construction bids are awarded.

The Emerald Necklace Conservancy and park neighbors who oppose the city’s plan have pitched an alternative high-school only rehab of White Stadium that they say can be built at a fraction of the cost to taxpayers, or $64.6 million.

Boston, MA – Louis Elisa speaks as community members call out Mayor Michelle Wu regarding White Stadium (Nancy Lane/Boston Herald)