Susan Ellsbery of the BRA confirms for GlobeSt.com that the city settled with the site's owner but would not confirm the price. Unconfirmed reports put the amount at $28.5 million. Reportedly, the BRA had originally offered $16.5 million for the property.

With this acquisition, 75% of the acreage and 61% of the parcels have been acquired by the city for the convention center. Eleven cases are still pending in the courts with owners who are not happy with the city's offers. Because of those pending cases it is still unclear how high the city will have to go to acquire the complete parcel.

In 1997, when the convention center project was approved, the city agreed to pay $157.8 million for acquiring the land. According to Ellsbery, the city has another $25 million in its coffers for the land and the state has agreed to put in $25 million also. As of now, says Ellsbery, "we are still within our budget."The Massachusetts Convention Center authority has recently increased the center's budget by $50 million up to $800 million and has cut the facility's size to deal with rising construction costs.