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Archive Boston, MA

Cancelled

Boston 2024 Olympic Stadium, Widett Circle

Widett Circle, Boston, MA 02118 approximate location

Boston's Olympic bid rested on a stadium that was never meant to be permanent, built on a food distribution site south of downtown. Public opinion turned against the bid within months. The city and the USOC pulled the plug in July 2015.

What got built

Current photograph of Boston 2024 Olympic Stadium, Widett Circle in Boston.
Photograph by Pi.1415926535, Taken on 22 March 2022. Source. CC BY-SA 4.0.

This photograph was verified against the project and published with recorded first-party, public-domain, or reusable-license rights. How the visual evidence works.

What changed

  • The USOC selected Boston as its bid city for the 2024 Summer Olympics in January 2015.
  • Boston 2024's revised bid, released June 29, 2015, proposed a temporary 69,000 seat Olympic Stadium at Widett Circle, along with a 17,200 bed Athletes' Village at Columbia Point.
  • Public support for hosting the Games declined through the first half of 2015, falling to roughly 40 percent in favor versus 53 percent opposed in the last polling before withdrawal.
  • Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said he would not sign the Host City Contract required by the IOC.
  • On July 27, 2015, the city and the USOC mutually agreed to terminate Boston's bid.
  • Boston 2024 released stadium concepts and bid documents, but no Widett Circle stadium design advanced to construction and nothing was built there as a result of the bid.

Why it changed

The city and the U.S. Olympic Committee ended Boston's bid on July 27, 2015 after public support weakened and Mayor Marty Walsh declined to sign the IOC's Host City Contract without additional financial protections. The revised venue concepts had been released in June 2015, but the stadium did not advance to construction.

Details

Status
Abandoned. None of the design was built.
Where
Boston, MA
Neighborhood
South Boston / Newmarket
Developer
Boston 2024 (bid committee)
Architect
Not identified in the sources reviewed. Architect David Manfredi presented Boston 2024's venue plans publicly but was not specifically credited as the Widett Circle stadium's designer in sources reviewed.
Rendering credit
Boston 2024
The built result
Photographed by Pi.1415926535, Taken on 22 March 2022

Sources

  1. WBUR: Boston 2024 Releases Its Revised Olympic Bid wbur.org
  2. Boston Magazine: USOC ends Boston 2024 bid (July 27, 2015) bostonmagazine.com

Research checked . Status and figures are updated when a source changes.

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