Adaptive reuse and its impacts on the acoustical environment and public health of community residents: the case of Fenway, Boston, MA

ABSTRACT

This article assesses the acoustical impacts to the environment in an urban neighborhood when a sports stadium is repurposed for live concerts. Various sound metrics were recorded with acoustic octave band analyzers on residential rooftops in one week intervals across multiple sites in the Fenway neighborhood within Boston, Massachusetts during a range of Fenway Park activities from March to September 2019. Analyses of sound level predictors were conducted to quantify the relative impact of different Fenway activities. Live concerts are significantly (p < 0.05) louder than other stadium activities across almost all sound metrics when adjusting for other relevant sources of sound, on average adding 4 dBA to the acoustical environment and with larger contributions at closer proximity to the stadium. Adaptive reuse of a baseball stadium to include live concerts led to a significant increase in noise levels in the surrounding community, which may impact the mental and physical health of neighborhood residents. These impacts may be more severe on the neighborhood’s most vulnerable residents. Our study reinforces the importance of monitoring multiple sound level metrics at numerous locations, with statistical methods to disentangle source contributions, in order to best capture the impact of changing use patterns on community noise exposures.

KEYWORDS:

• Adaptive reuse
• environmental sound
• noise exposure
• urban planning

This article is related to:

Research for city practice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Geolocation information

Fenway Neighborhood, Boston, MA

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation [#75557] and Boston University Initiative on Cities.

Notes on contributors

Erica D. Walker

The authors of this publication are members (or affiliates members) of Community Noise Lab, a research and advocacy lab based within the Department of Environmental Health at the Boston University School of Public Health. Community Noise Lab works with communities across the country as they grapple with their unique sound and noise issues. We support these communities with real-time sound monitoring using our state-of-the art monitoring network, smartphone technology using our app, NoiseScore, community noise surveying, laboratory based experiments, and community engagement activities.