Amid an 8% jump in spending and a 10.5% spike in taxes for Boston homeowners, Mayor Michelle Wu vowed the city will stick with a controversial plan to rehab White Stadium to house a pro soccer team “no matter what it costs” to taxpayers.

The project has already seen the city portion of the budget soar, from an initial $50 million projected by Wu, to $91 million and counting. That revision was revealed without any announcement from the corner office, and instead emerged last month at a meeting of the city’s below-the-radar public facilities commission.

Wu, on GBH’s Boston Public Radio Wednesday, made it clear that cost was not a factor for a project the city “very strongly” considers to be “in the public interest,” when asked if she could make a guarantee to city taxpayers that they wouldn’t be on the hook for the cost of construction should it exceed that $91 million price tag.

“We are going to pay for our half of the stadium, no matter what it costs,” Wu said. “But we’re about to begin construction and we feel that the estimates that we have are going to be in the ballpark of what is needed, and that this overall is going to be a deal that is worth it for generations to come for our city.”

The dilapidated century-old stadium is due to become home for a National Women’s Soccer League team, BOS Nation Football Club, and share the space with Boston Public Schools. The project, however, is facing intense local opposition and is the subject of a lawsuit challenging the shift in the Franklin Park facility to use for a for-profit organization, a privatization claim the city denies.

The mayor’s latest commitment to the project’s ever-rising cost did not sit well with parts of the community. Some critics likened Wu’s remarks to her effectively making a promise to sign a blank check as part of the city’s public-private partnership with Boston Unity Soccer Partners, an all-female ownership group that includes Boston Globe CEO Linda Pizzuti Henry among its investors.

“Boston taxpayers are being asked to write a blank check for the benefit of BOS Nation’s millionaire investors, with no limit to how much this bloated project could ultimately cost us,” Dorchester resident Jessica Spruill said in a statement. “The rush to complete this massive project will certainly lead to additional cost overruns.”

“It’s becoming clearer every day that this deal is a massive giveaway to wealthy private investors, and Boston residents are paying the price,” Spruill added.

Critics, some of whom are plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed against the city and Boston Unity with an initial aim of stopping the stadium tear-down and rehab, seized on Wu’s comments that she would not rule out further construction cost overruns, nor consider more affordable alternatives.

“It’s a little insulting, quite frankly to the taxpayers,” Melissa Hamel, a Jamaica Plain resident and one of the plaintiffs, told the Herald. “We’re expected to keep paying, no matter what, and also pay for property tax increases. So it feels like the mayor has forgotten what her job is, and that is to represent the people who pay the taxes and have elected her.

“I voted for the mayor and I really wanted for her to succeed,” Hamel added, “but this whole project, from the very beginning, has felt like a backroom deal that was negotiated before there was any community hearings about it, and we were just presented with what was going to happen.”

Opposing abutters known as the Franklin Park Defenders have pushed for a more modest rehab of White Stadium as a high-school-only facility, which they cite “experts” as projecting a cost for that smaller-scale plan as roughly $20 million.

A group of Boston taxpayers, including opposing abutters, delivered letters to Mayor Wu and the 13 city council members at City Hall on Wednesday, pushing for the city to, rather than house the new professional women’s soccer team at White Stadium, have that team share a new stadium in Everett with the New England Revolution.

The Kraft Group, which includes Josh Kraft, who is considering a bid for mayor against Wu in 2025, is behind the Everett stadium plan, which was recently approved by the state Legislature.

Councilors Ed Flynn and Erin Murphy, antagonists of the mayor, both bashed the city’s inflated price tag, nearly double of what was initially proposed, and the impact that they said would be felt by taxpayers.

“Mayor Wu’s acknowledgment that the price has now doubled, with taxpayers shouldering half of this burden, raises significant red flags about fiscal responsibility and priorities,” Murphy said in a statement.

Michelle Davis, a Boston resident, said spending $91 million of taxpayer dollars in support of a second stadium in Franklin Park is “irresponsible.”

“Sharing Everett stadium, as nearly all professional soccer stadiums do nationwide, is practical and financially sound,” Davis said in a statement. “The Everett Stadium is in an industrial area that offers better parking, potential subway access and ferry service, without burdening Boston taxpayers.”

Wu, when speaking to reporters Thursday, attributed cost overruns to the design phase, which was dependent, in part, on community feedback. The initial projected cost was a “placeholder,” she said, and the current figure of roughly $200 million including the $91 million city match, is “much more realistic” due to the relevant contracts being “fully baked.”

Related Articles

Natick next up to vote on rules similar to other Massachusetts sanctuary cities

Boston Mayor Wu knocks Senate for killing tax shift bill, City Council sets rates

Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson defies calls to resign amid public corruption charges

Michelle Wu’s State of the City pushed back, will work after birth of baby girl

Boston City Council: Debate on anti-terrorism grants erupts, again

Such shifts are seen with every capital project, she said, and the new cost will be reflected in a reworked lease agreement, which Wu said will be finalized “soon.”

A day prior, Wu had stated it was not realistic that an $8-$20 million investment from the city would not be enough to rehab a run-down stadium that is “on the verge of being unusable” for BPS students, saying that amount could cover cosmetic costs, but “would not allow us to really take things to the next level.”

She also mentioned what she saw as the importance of a women’s soccer team having their own facilities, rather than having to share such accommodations with the Revs, a men’s pro soccer team.

“We believe very strongly that this is in the public interest,” Wu said.

Renee Stacey Welch, a plaintiff who lives in Egleston Square, wasn’t convinced. She said she found it offensive that she would not only have to be on the hook, as a city taxpayer, for funding a stadium plan she opposes, but that the city is attributing part of the cost overruns leading to the soaring price tag to community input.

“Everything that comes out of her mouth, to me, is offensive to the community, and she does not care,” Welch said of Wu. “She’s not standing for us. She’s standing for a bunch of rich, affluent people who don’t live in this community, who would never live in this community, but want to make money off the backs of this community.

“She’s failing us. She’s failing our kids. She’s failing the black and brown community.”