The Massachusetts Development Finance Agency board members voted March 13 to approve Northeastern to sell $650 million of municipal bonds to finance the deconstruction and construction of the new multi-purpose facility that is planned to replace the historic Matthews Arena.
Northeastern’s 2024 institutional master plan, or IMP, estimated the construction of the new facility at 262 St. Botolph St. would cost between $300 and $350 million. The proposed building will include an arena for ice hockey and basketball games, practice courts, redesigned training facilities for athletic teams, office spaces for varsity athletes and coaches and indoor rowing tanks for the men’s and women’s varsity rowing teams.
According to the IMP, construction on the project is anticipated to begin construction in winter 2025 and be completed by summer of 2028. But at a recent faculty senate meeting, David Madigan, Northeastern’s provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, said the timeline was still uncertain.
“There is no timeline in terms of when we actually build that. We will build that facility when we can afford it. And so there isn’t a timeline, there isn’t a commitment to put a shovel in the ground on any given date,” Madigan said at a March 12 faculty senate meeting.
Northeastern plans to sell $400 million in bonds for the arena while the remaining $100 million will be used for other capital projects on its Boston campus.
Municipal bonds are debt securities issued by states, cities and other governmental entities to fund day-to-day obligations and finance capital projects.
Municipal bonds do not require organizations to pay taxes outside of state and federal taxes on municipal bonds right now; however, the Trump administration is looking to eliminate these benefits. This change would push investors to ask for higher payouts to spend on infrastructure.
In the same committee meeting, the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency also approved Wellesley College’s request for municipal bonds of $165 million to refinance existing debt and other campus projects.
Northeastern has spent millions of dollars renovating and repairing Matthews Arena since purchasing the facility as the Boston Arena in 1979, but the concerns surrounding the structural stability continues.
The requests to sell the bond must be approved by Gov. Maura Healey before the sales continue, Massachusetts Development Finance Agency spokesperson Kelsey Schiller told Bloomberg, which first reported on the university’s interest in selling bonds.
