Everett AquaSox Axel Sanchez keeps an eye on the ball during a 2023 game.
File photo by Doug Ramsay
EVERETT — The City Council is expected to decide where Everett’s future stadium will be located with a vote at its meeting Dec. 18.
The meeting will include a public hearing.
This week, the council will hear a briefing on the matter.
The choice is between plunging money into rehabilitating Funko Field at Everett Memorial Stadium, near 39th and Broadway, or building a new stadium on a 12.5-acre footprint near the northeast corner of Broadway and Wall Street a block east of Angel of the Winds Arena downtown. The latter demolishes some downtown buildings.
Both will solidify keeping the Everett AquaSox minor league baseball team. If the stadium is built downtown, it could attract a pro soccer team and give the community a new public space for concerts and events.
The Mayor’s office is recommending downtown.
The reason the Sox are looking for upgraded facilities is because Major League Baseball put it on their teams to require them to play in better facilities or get out of the league. These must meet a strict compliance checklist, and where they play now at Funko Field doesn’t cut it.
The AquaSox conducted an information meeting Dec. 3 at the Marriott Courtyard with nearly 200 in attendance. The team also recently called on fans to write to the City Council to give support for a ballpark.
Council members could choose an unlikely curveball to do nothing. It would force Everett to lose the team.
Even so, last week, the council approved a contract to have a firm proceed with a fast-tracked construction program for the site.
Designing the stadium will take most of 2025, and construction will start as late as March 2026, with move-in planned in 2027, under paperwork the city sent to the state.
The vote on the 18th sets the site, but “it isn’t the final decision, the final process. There’s plenty of offramp opportunities if we do choose to go a different direction,” City Council President Don Schwab said.
Council will be talking funding plans in the coming year. Some of the money could come from taking out municipal bonds, according to funding plans presented previously. The Sox would contribute $10 million.
The Funko Field project would cost $66 million, of which $44 million would be construction.
The downtown site would cost $137 million, of which $77 million would be construction. A breakout shows land acquisition would be about $25 million of the total.
The City Council public hearing will be on Wednesday, Dec. 18 at 6:30 p.m. at 3002 Wetmore Ave. The meeting is also on Zoom. See www.everettwa.gov/agendacenter for further details.
The Sox are safe for now. The team just extended its contract to be at Funko Field for the 2025 and 2026 seasons with the school board’s approval. In that contract, the district agreed to modify a room in the stadium to one with locking doors to act as the female coaches locker room.
MLB’s facility requirements include separate women’s staff spaces, umpire spaces, enlarged dugouts, larger home and visiting team spaces, approximately 32 parking spaces for players and staff, and more, from information noted in City of Everett paperwork. Baseball America magazine has corroborated many of these requirements in its own reporting.
