Boston Mayor Michelle Wu defended the city’s plan to invest roughly $100 million into a public-private rehab of White Stadium amid federal funding uncertainty that she previously said is leading her to assemble as “lean” a budget as possible. Wu framed the city’s taxpayer-funded half of the $200 million professional soccer stadium deal as a key investment into Boston Public Schools student-athletes while leading a press conference at the Franklin Park facility a day after a Superior Court judge ruled against a community-led lawsuit that aimed to block the project. “I know this is a hard time for our residents,” Wu said on Thursday. “Our communities are under attack, and it can, in that way, feel uncertain about why we would take such a big leap and invest such a big dollar amount into the facilities here … White Stadium has been in the conversation for more than 40 years. “Starts and stops, broken promises, and after every new initiative that we’re going to get this done, we’re going to find the funding, we’re going to finally fix things, it has fallen apart. And who ends up getting impacted by that? Our kids.” Wu has faced consistent criticism over the project’s price tag, which has ballooned from an early $100 million projected investment to $200 million today. The city’s half, funded by taxpayers, has also doubled, from $50 million to roughly $100 million, and the mayor has not ruled out further cost overruns. Such criticism was rehashed by Wu’s mayoral opponent Josh Kraft on Wednesday, shortly after the court ruled in favor of the city and Boston Unity Soccer Partners, effectively clearing the National Women’s Soccer League expansion team BUSP owns, Boston Legacy, to play at White Stadium, in March 2026. “Spending over $100 million in taxpayer dollars on a project that will primarily benefit a private entity is a bad idea, regardless of the legal outcome today,” Kraft said in a Wednesday statement. “White Stadium could be refurbished for the exclusive use of BPS kids for one-third of that price.” The new team, as tenants of a lease agreement with the city, would share use of the stadium with Boston Public Schools student-athletes. The court ruled against the Emerald Necklace Conservancy and a group of 20 park neighbors, who alleged in their lawsuit that the proposed professional soccer use illegally privatized protected parkland. While the project has divided the community, no criticism was on display at Thursday’s press conference, which largely served as a victory lap for Wu, elected and BPS officials, and community members who have long supported the plan. The mayor’s office organized the event in response to the ruling. “We’re here to celebrate a huge victory for not only the city of Boston, but for our young people, our student athletes, our coaches, our community members, every park lover, every resident of the city who will benefit from the services and the excitement that this investment will bring to our community,” the mayor said. Wu said the public-private investment will transform a dilapidated facility into a professional-level stadium for the community and BPS student-athletes, who will see increased use of it for 345 days of the year. The pro team would have priority use for 20 game days. The facility, which had been closed on weekends, will now be open year-round with increased hours throughout the week. Wu said the prior White Stadium facilities were not up to state standards. Locker rooms were crumbling, there was no heat or hot water, or water at all with plumbing turned off when the temperature got too low due to old pipes. The field was “so patchy and filled with holes,” Wu said, “that teams from the suburbs would refuse to play here.” “I will not ever stop fighting for our city kids to have everything that teams anywhere else in the city, in the state, or across the country have,” Wu said. “This will be the only stadium in the country where a professional sports team is paying rent to play alongside a public school district and their student teams in a new state-of-the-art stadium.”