City of Everett Outdoor Multipurpose Facility Project

Due to new requirements from Major League Baseball, the Everett AquaSox, the city's minor league baseball team, will need an updated or new stadium facility. The City of Everett is currently exploring the feasibility of different options that will ensure the AquaSox remain part of the community for generations to come.

Minor League Baseball’s future in Everett faces three options: Refurbish the current stadium — Funko Field — on Everett School District property; build a new field and stadium downtown across from the Angel of the Winds Arena; or watch another city provide a new home, spurring the departure from the city of the AquaSox, the Seattle Mariners’ High-A affiliate.

The first two options offer their own advantages and disadvantages; the third means the loss of a 40-year history of Minor League Baseball — and its roster of former and current big league players and stars — thrown out at its home plate in Everett.

After nearly a year of meetings, Everett’s Stadium Fiscal Advisory Committee released its final report Wednesday, detailing ways the city could find money to build or renovate a stadium for the AquaSox.

The committee recommended against raising taxes or using general fund dollars to build a stadium — city staff had previously expressed they did not want to do either. Instead, Everett could pay for the project using a swath of funding sources, the report said, including federal and state money, private investment, capital improvement funds and bonds issued based on future revenue projections.

If there’s no crying in baseball, there’s even less certainty in baseball’s outcomes, at least until the final out.

But what seems certain now, following a nearly year-long process by a City of Everett fiscal advisory committee, is that the best chance to continue the 40-year legacy of the Everett AquaSox Minor League Baseball club here is to move forward with plans to build a new stadium downtown, funding construction — in stages if necessary — with a combination of private and public funds.

If there’s no crying in baseball, there’s even less certainty in baseball’s outcomes, at least until the final out.

But what seems certain now, following a nearly year-long process by a City of Everett fiscal advisory committee, is that the best chance to continue the 40-year legacy of the Everett AquaSox Minor League Baseball club here is to move forward with plans to build a new stadium downtown, funding construction — in stages if necessary — with a combination of private and public funds.

After almost two years of studies and deliberations, the Everett City Council on Wednesday selected a downtown location as the site for a potential stadium to host the minor league AquaSox.

The council did not decide on whether a stadium will be built. That will come further along in the process after a design is completed — likely in 2025 or early 2026, according to consultants working on the project.

In a decision that could reshape the city’s downtown, the Everett City Council on Wednesday approved a resolution that moved a sports stadium project closer to reality.

The council voted unanimously to place the future home of the Everett AquaSox just east of Angel of the Winds Arena, between Hewitt and Pacific avenues. City leaders also envision the outdoor stadium hosting United Soccer League men’s and women’s teams, concerts and school sports tournaments.

The Everett City Council took next steps in the development of the future Aquasox stadium and heard an update from the Greater Everett Chamber of Commerce.

The council voted 6-1 to approve an agreement with construction company Bayley Construction to begin work on the highly anticipated outdoor multipurpose stadium facility.