Just days after Yale architect students shared their point of view on a future ballpark for the Pawtucket Red Sox, a local Worcester MA newspaper spread the news about the city discussing a possible move of the PawSox.
Several city and state officials and several team executives met on Monday to discuss the possibility of a Worcester ballpark for the PawSox. One of the PawSox executives was president Larry Lucchino.
You can wonder why the PawSox were in Worcester the other day as they have proposed a ballpark in Pawtucket. If a Worcester ballpark would be realized, it would be a cooperation between the city of Worcester, the state of Massachusetts and the club. One of the PawSox officials said that the recent uptick in the intensity of the negotiations “is not a ploy,” and that the team has left each visit and meeting more impressed with what the city is offering.
The PawSox executives were hosted at a hockey game of the Worcester Railers as they were pampered in the Railers’ owner private suite.
Even though the PawSox have made clear they do not want to leave Pawtucket, there is a catch with a future ballpark plan in Pawtucket. The Rhode Island plan for an $83 million ballpark in downtown Pawtucket has had to deal with a fallout from the state’s earlier financial hit with Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios failure and may not be voted on in the general assembly there until 2018. With the approval of this ballpark plan up in the air, Worcester may be a sure alternative for the PawSox.
The recent visit to Worcester wasn’t the first. Since their first visit in July, club executives have been to Worcester several times. Negotiations during those visits have been kept secret to the public.
But next to Worcester there is a third party on the prowl for the PawSox. Attleboro, adjacent to Pawtucket is another candidate to land the team. That possible site came up as a result of a project by ballpark architect Janet Marie Smith’s students at Yale, where she is a visiting professor.
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