Copyright © 1997 by the Boston Phoenix, Inc. All rights reserved.
By Dan Kennedy and Jody Ericson
No media account of Patriots owner Bob Kraft's oft-rebuffed attempts to build a new stadium is complete without a few ominous paragraphs about (minor-key organ chords, please) the Providence option.
Typical was the Boston Globe's August 20 report on House Speaker Tom Finneran's reluctance to approve $50 million in road and infrastructure improvements that would enable Kraft to build in Foxborough, next to the team's existing stadium. "Providence is very real," an NFL official was quoted as saying.
Not so fast. Kraft is reportedly looking for $100 million in public money to build outside of Massachusetts, and that could prove an impossibly high hurdle. According to Medians, published by Moody's Investors Services, Rhode Island's net per capita tax-supported debt is already the third-highest in the US. The total, $1.7 billion as of June 1996, amounts to 8.5 percent of personal income, compared to a national average of 2.8 percent.
When Kraft began eyeing Providence, Mayor Buddy Cianci practically herniated himself in his haste to whip out the public's checkbook -- or, more accurately, credit card. Now Governor Lincoln Almond is quietly putting together a plan to be unveiled by Labor Day while refusing to disclose the amount of public money he's willing to put up. And as the Providence Journal-Bulletin pointed out on August 21, any site in Providence would carry with it enormous parking and land-acquisition problems.
Kraft is also sniffing around various locations in Connecticut. But any potential location in that state is a long way from the Patriots' fan base in Boston and Southeastern New England. And Connecticut lacks the panache of both Greater Boston (of which Foxborough is a part, sort of) and economically vibrant Providence.
So unless Kraft sells and the team moves to, say, Cleveland, the odds may be pretty good that Pats are staying right where they are.