The Red Sox over the last nine years “have increased their revenue by an estimated $45 million through the use of two streets that city officials handed over for a relative pittance: an average of $186,000 a year in lease fees,” according to a front-page piece by Stephen Kurkjian of the BOSTON GLOBE. The city “set the lease fees without taking into account how much money the team could make from” closing Yawkey Way and Lansdowne Street on game days. Red Sox Senior VP/Public Affairs & Marketing Susan Goodenow “defended the lease fees as appropriate but refused to respond to questions about the estimated revenues." In a statement, she said that team officials “would not discuss the issue because of negotiations with” the Boston Redevelopment Agency. Industry estimates and city records show that if the city “had demanded a portion of the revenues, as is common in commercial ventures, the team would have paid the city millions more over the first nine years of the 11-year lease.” The BRA in '02 “declared the two streets to be ‘urban blight’ to legally justify taking them from the city and handing control to the Red Sox.” Instead of seeking a share of the actual revenue, the city’s outside appraiser “decided to base the Lansdowne Street lease payments on the value of the land only, which they determined was worth little because the only possible buyer would be the team.” As for Yawkey Way, the appraiser “recommended a lease payment based not on what large pregame crowds would spend there, but on the business done by pushcarts in shopping malls.” Boston Mayor Thomas Menino is “unabashedly supportive of the 2003 lease agreement.” BRA Exec Dir Peter Meade said that the city “will seek a percentage of the revenues after the current contract expires in 2013 and will also try to renegotiate the remaining two years left on the existing lease to do the same” (BOSTON GLOBE, 11/7).
