Everett seeks $10.6 million to finish stadium design

Published 3:03 pm Thursday, April 16, 2026

EVERETT — Everett staff are asking its city council to approve an additional $10.6 million in spending on its downtown stadium project, a funding measure that would complete the design of the site.

The city has already spent about $7.2 million in capital funds on the stadium project, known as the Outdoor Event Center, that would eventually host the Everett AquaSox, along with men’s and women’s United Soccer League teams, if it’s eventually approved.

This round of spending still does not signal final approval of the stadium project. That will come when a funding plan is developed and approved, likely in July or August, city staff said.

But the upcoming vote represents the most significant decision the council will make on the project to date. If the spending is approved, the city would get the $10.6 million via an interfund loan from its general fund balance, a city council memo showed. The plan, city project manager Scott Pattison and consultant Ben Franz said, is to repay the loan when the city later passes a bond measure to fund a large chunk of the stadium project.

If the council approves the $10.6 million loan but then doesn’t approve a later stadium bond to pay it back, it could mean a loss of at least $4.8 million worth of critical general fund dollars. (Some money spent on property acquisition work could be reclaimed if the city were to back out of the project, Franz said.)

The $10.6 million would go toward completing the design of the stadium and continuing work on property acquisition on the stadium site. The city needs to buy 15 parcels to build the stadium — it has signed agreements to purchase two parcels, has pending agreements with four more and is in active negotiations with the owners of eight others.

It hasn’t officially purchased any of the properties. That would only come after the council approves the stadium’s construction.

The multi-million-dollar ask comes after Everett staff told the council during its annual retreat in January that the price of the stadium had increased significantly compared to its initial projections. The city first estimated the project would cost $82 million when asking for a $4.8 million funding measure in June 2025. By January, the projected cost had increased to $120 million. Everett staff cited an increase in property acquisition and construction costs as the reasons for the rising price.

The city has yet to find a way to fill that funding gap. Franz said it is looking for potential sources of money for the project. Those could include “a number of options, including some very unique public-private partnerships,” he said, but he couldn’t share more details.

“There’s a balance between upfront capital and the debt the city is going to issue, and we’re simultaneously working on both,” Franz said after Wednesday’s council meeting. “The more upfront capital we’re able to secure, the less debt the city has to issue. And that’s the piece we’re balancing, which is why we can’t sit here today and say, ‘Here’s the full funding plan.’”

The current plan is to pay for much of the stadium’s design with a bond, likely worth more than $40 million, that would be paid back via lease revenue from the sports teams using the stadium. Other funding sources include $7.4 million from a state account dedicated to youth athletic fields within a public facility improvement fund, and $5 million from Snohomish County, spread over four years of payments between 2027 and 2030. As of now, the city’s direct capital contributions to the project make up about 8% of the stadium’s cost.

The city is about $25 million short of its $120 million budget, staff said in Wednesday’s presentation. The opening date for the project has also been pushed back. The city initially hoped to have opened the stadium by April 2027, allowing the AquaSox to begin its baseball season that year, but the expected opening has been delayed to late 2027.

Other funding options could include a federal loan program that distributes funds to economic development projects near rail infrastructure, Franz said. That program could give the city a more favorable interest rate on its bond but would also require a lengthy application process, he said.

Contractors and architects have completed initial design work of the project and shared details of the proposed design with the city council on Wednesday. It would feature 5,000 seats, a clubhouse area that can be used for events, an artificial turf field and a walking area around its perimeter. A main entrance is planned for where Wall Street meets Broadway.

The city has also made progress on negotiations with the sports teams that would use the new stadium. Both the AquaSox and United Soccer League agreed to financial terms of a lease agreement, Franz said in a Wednesday interview. The minor league team and the soccer league would commit $17 million upfront toward the construction of the stadium and about $100 million in lease payments over the next 30 years, city staff said.

They also agreed to assume responsibility for day-to-day maintenance at the facility, meaning the city would likely only have to staff one employee to oversee its operations, Mayor Cassie Franklin said at Wednesday’s council meeting. The city would be on the hook for larger maintenance projects like stadium repairs or upgrades.

Another agreement in the lease would guarantee the city has 50 available days per year to host public events of its own at the stadium or lease it to other groups to run events.

Money from the lease agreements with the sports teams would go into a capital fund to pay for needed repairs to the stadium, as well as paying off the bonds issued to build it. Once the bonds are paid off, the lease revenue would go into the city’s general fund.

Before the United Soccer League’s portion of the money can come in, however, the league would need to find an owner or ownership group to buy the new teams, Pattison said. He said in an interview Wednesday that the league has “two or three people that are interested.”

A United Soccer League spokesperson did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

ESPN has previously reported that the franchise fee for a USL League One team is around $5 million. The fee for a team in the USL Championship, a higher-tier league, would cost about $20 million.

Buying an expansion team in the USL Super League, its professional women’s league, could cost around $10 million, according to reporting from Backheeled and The Athletic.

The process of the league finding an owner or an ownership group to buy the teams could affect the stadium’s timeline, Franz said.

“It really depends on where they are in the process, and where we are in overall readiness to start construction,” he said. “We have commitments to the AquaSox that we want to meet at this point. Our goal is to start construction in September, and so we’ll work diligently with them together to meet that.”

The project is being built through a progressive design-build process, meaning the contractor is working alongside architects to design the stadium. If a stadium is approved, the contractor would be required to build the project at a guaranteed price.

Everett first started studying a potential stadium upgrade in 2022 when Major League Baseball announced new standards for minor league stadiums. Funko Field, in its current state, doesn’t meet those requirements. In 2024, the AquaSox’s owner said that the city was in danger of losing the team. Later that year, the city council decided to study building a stadium in the city’s downtown core, funded via public and private dollars because they could secure more money for the project.

The city council is expected to vote on the $10.6 million funding measure on April 29. Pattison and Franz said the city expects to develop a full funding plan by July, with a vote on whether to approve the project expected in August.

Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.