The Menino Convention and Exhibition Center is seen on Jul. 12, 2025.
The Menino Convention and Exhibition Center is seen on Jul. 12, 2025.Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff
The honchos at the Menino Convention & Exhibition Center had some ambitious hoop dreams last year.
How about building a new home for the Celtics, on the huge lot behind the South Boston convention center?
The far-fetched idea was explored by the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority’s executive team last fall, soon after the sale of the C’s was completed, according to emails that surfaced from a public records request.
New C’s owner Bill Chisholm has publicly shown no interest in moving out of the TD Garden, which the team shares with the Bruins. But that has not tamped down speculation about whether the C’s might look for a new home before their lease runs out in 2036.
Among Boston’s speculators: Marcel Vernon, the then-executive director of the MCCA, along with the operations chief, John Donahue, and head of convention marketing, Milt Herbert. (Vernon stepped down in December.)
In a Sept. 30 email to Vernon, Donahue described a scenario in which the land behind the convention center gets split in two: one half for a new basketball arena where the C’s could play, at Cypher and D streets, and the other for a long-awaited convention center expansion. The arena could also have an opening in the back, along an old railroad line called Track 61 with the hopes that someday the track could be reused for passenger service — or maybe a newfangled “people mover” goes there instead.
The biggest hurdle, from Donahue’s perspective: the arena’s height. The TD Garden stands 10 stories high, or more than 160 feet — 40 feet higher than the convention center. However, he noted that the neighborhood was promised that building heights along Cypher would not exceed 40 feet.
Herbert shared a few thoughts, in a separate email to Vernon the next day. The MCCA could use the arena for other events, when the C’s don’t need it. Herbert suggested hosting WNBA games (though the Connecticut Sun appears to be headed to Houston, not Boston, now) and other basketball programs including maybe a “mini” Basketball Hall of Fame, and possibly performances that don’t find a home at the TD Garden.
So how serious were these arena conversations? Apparently, not very. Jeff Robbins, Vernon’s lawyer, says Vernon recalls these as high-level conceptual discussions, as part of normal due diligence when undertaking a strategic plan, but did not go much further than that.
Likewise, a spokesperson for the MCCA confirmed that the idea was explored as part of a broader review of long-term opportunities, but the authority is not pursuing it now.
Most importantly, what does Chisholm think? In a wide-ranging press conference held just days before these email exchanges, the private equity executive was asked whether he would consider moving the C’s to another location. After conceding it’s too early to close the door definitively, he went on to praise the Garden as a venue, saying it’s beloved by players and fans. Plus, if the C’s did make the decision to move, he would want the B’s to be part of it. (The Jacobs family controls TD Garden owner Delaware North, and also owns the B’s.)
Bottom line: We’ve got a great thing going, so let’s not mess with it.
To some longtime residents, this arena talk will feel like déjà vu. In the 1990s, the Krafts sought to build a new football stadium there, first as part of a “Megaplex” with a new convention center, and then on its own. The neighborhood balked, as did then-mayor Tom Menino. That convention center eventually went up, and was even named after the late mayor last year. But the Krafts took their football dreams elsewhere, first dallying with Hartford before returning to Foxborough to build what became Gillette Stadium.
Two decades later, the Krafts considered another Boston stadium proposal, on South Boston’s southern edge, for the New England Revolution. More pushback. Another retrenchment. Eventually, they picked the site of a shuttered power plant in Everett for the Revs’ future home.
Yes, the new basketball arena concept is on the sidelines after a brief parquet appearance. But other construction projects remain in play for the MCCA.
The authority still has surplus land on the other side of D Street to be developed or turned into garages, after one ambitious plan collapsed three years ago. And hope springs eternal for some sort of convention center expansion. Nothing moves ahead, the MCCA promises, without substantive neighborhood input. After all, no one wants another Megaplex-sized battle to resolve.
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.