Everett updates financing plan for stadium project

Want to jump into this next story. If you haven't been paying close attention, a lot going on up in Everett. Everett eyeing a brand new stadium, part of a push to keep the Everett Aqua Sox long term and to attract professional soccer to the area. But the cost to build it has been going up and a new path for paying it is starting to come into light. Right now, I want to bring in from The Puget Sound Business Journal, Nitish Basnet, he's been reporting this story for the Puget Sound Business Journal for some time. So first and foremost, I just want to say thanks for being with us on the show today. Oh, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Thank you. It's a pleasure. Well, you know, I'm actually from the North Sound, so I'm always a little slanted. I get a little bit interested in this, but I'm also a sports fan, so I know there's kind of like this trend for cities or groups to be more involved in trying to attract these stadiums in. But I kind of lost track of this thing, and you've been doing a lot of work on this, so I kind of want to start from the mile-high view of just the cost of the stadium and what's been kind of going on as Everett is looking to build this new facility. Oh well this is like actually a pretty familiar story and if you just step back and like look at the development and the construction industry right now in general like projects are grappling with an uncertain financing market and just higher cost in general like developers are very cautious about starting any new projects because it has become harder to pencil out. So but when Everett first decided to build this new stadium more than like two years ago, the project was expected to cost anywhere between 80 to 120 million. Now the latest estimate is roughly 145 million. So the price tag has gone up significantly, I would say. But city officials say say the increase is because it's been driven by a mix of land acquisition costs. Construction materials prices going up and just some additional rising project expenses. Well, and then that also kicks us over to what's going on with the election now. It was just a short while ago that we started hearing about the combination of Everett Transit and the larger county system. I didn't even realize that there was going to be money left over for this. So how does the funding mechanism start kicking into this? Because it does sound like Everett's getting a little bit of a windfall to try to figure out how they want to pay for this thing. Yeah, windfall is that's the word right there. So when It looked like it was two separate conversation of like the transit merger was happening and the stadium project was happening and on their own different timelines. But now, with the merger, Everett is receiving expected to receive like roughly $73 million in one time proceeds from that deal Community Transit and Everett Transit. Thank you, Dave. They have given their final approval last week. So the deal is happening. It's expected to actually be effective next year on April. So the city leaders are now proposing to use 33 million of those funds to help pay for this stadium project. And that was an interesting twist. Certainly raised a few eyebrows. And that's really where the debate has shifted now. Yeah, I feel like public funds paying for stadiums has kind of been a big conversation for some time. And I was a little surprised as somebody who lives in Everett, like, oh, wow, we're giving the money, but we're also redirecting to this. So I'm sure you're hearing a lot from more and more people in the community. So I guess I should ask, you know, with these community funds being earmarked for this facility, how does the facility get used? Who all would be a part of this? Well, to go back to that, to be fair, the mayor and the council have discussed using some of the funds for investments in transit infrastructures and parks and other purposes. But so this the the city is set to borrow up to 92 million in that just to build the stadium project. Officials say just using this fund. will help them save roughly 60 million in borrowing costs. So overall, they're trying to bring the cost to the taxpayers down. But they are the city expects this project to generate millions of dollars in annual revenue and in economic activity and just bring hundreds of new jobs to the local economy and besides baseball the venue is expected to be home to USL soccer teams and also host a number of concerts festivals and other events like throughout the year so they are trying to Plan this as a regional destination for the people of Everett. Well, at least that's the hope. And that's why I was excited to have you on today because I feel like there's so many things going on and you guys over at Puget Sound Business Journal tackle these types of things when you're talking transit, votes by the people, money, funding, borrowing cash, plus all these different entities involved. This is honestly one of the more complex stories. It sounds simplistic when you're on the outside like they're building a new stadium, but when you start digging into it, you see how the funding mechanisms work. It starts getting pretty confusing to you. It does. There's so many different aspects and different players like they are working on this. And yeah, it does get confusing and the complexity of this project itself. It has been years in the making. And yeah. It's hard to keep track of everything at once sometimes. So I always kind of like to open up because I feel like reporter notebooks, they're very full. And I don't know if the viewers at home always realize how much work goes into a story and how much knowledge you kind of just tuck away for a rainy day because it doesn't end up in the paper. So was there anything interesting here that you didn't get a chance to write about or anything that really just kind of started turning the wheels in your head that you found interesting? Well, what's interesting is that if you're like just specifically looking at the stadium, project itself they are not looking to build on a giant empty field the city needs to assemble like almost 12.5 acres of land like what can we call prime real estate in Everett and this entails acquiring dozens of properties relocating businesses and clearing like existing structures so all of that just adds to the complexities and just those businesses who will have to navigate side by side that's going to be interesting to watch and that yeah at the early planning stages most projects don't necessarily plan for something like this and so yeah that also affects the cost i guess to bring it all together Certainly interesting. I know it sounds like Everett will eventually get a facelift and we now have a better idea of how it all comes together. Nitesh Bhasnep with Puget Sound Business Journal. Hey, I just want to say thank you for taking the time today and for our viewers at home. You can catch him covering economic development on the east side and Snohomish County. Nitesh, thanks. Thank you very much.