EDIT: Recovered the original article! Edited appropriately.
But wait! All this buzz and hullabaloo about the New England Revolution building a stadium in Revere, and everyone stops thinking about other locations. Revere isn't the Revs' only option, it seems. After all, has everyone forgotten about Somerville or something?
Short answer? Yeah, we have.
Apparently rumors of the demise of a possible "Revs to Somerville" deal were greatly exaggerated. Sean Donahue at New England Soccer Today reported that Somerville still has a dog in the fight, and talks, while still preliminary, have not died off entirely.
All right, so it's really good to hear that the Revs aren't putting all their eggs in one basket. Frankly, I hope they shop around for different sites and take the deal that makes the most sense, should any be forthcoming. Hell, they oughta be talking to UMass Boston about the Expo Center property; that location, on the high-speed red line, would probably beat all the others.
Honestly, it just sounds like Thomas Champion, the Executive Director of Communications for Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone (get that on a business card), is miffed that a different municipality is getting all the attention. The Revs have been courting Somerville for something like five years. Five years. If you guys wanted a stadium, you should have gotten it done already instead of yanking the Revs' chain.
I'm quite sure the Revs are still maintaining low level talks in Somerville. And apparently now it's about Assembly Square, which is a different site than the old spot (Brickbottom) and has a definite time-table on an MBTA orange line stop being built. But I'm also quite sure that the enthusiasm showed by Dan Rizzo is not something the Revs will overlook as they continue this process, and I don't see any sort of enthusiasm like that from Champion.
Regardless, Champion does make one salient point: a lot of this depends on the casino at Suffolk Downs. Rizzo has talked about using the mitigation payments from the casino developer to fund the stadium; if there's no casino, I'm not sure Rizzo finds a way to raise the money. It's important to remember that.
So Somerville's not out of it yet. Options are always nice, I guess.