Seattle Mariners High-A Affiliate Staying in Everett With New Downtown Location
The Seattle Mariners minor league system will undergo a shuffle after 2025.
Next season will be the last that the Modesto Nuts will be the Mariners Low-A minor league affiliate. The organization sold the team to Diamond Baseball Holdings and will bring in the Inland Empire 66ers as the new Low-A California League club beginning in 2026.
Seattle had another minor league team with an uncertain future entering Wednesday. But it looks like things took a good turn for that club.
The Everett (Wash.) City Council approved a resolution on Wednesday that will keep the Mariners' High-A team, the Everett AquaSox, in the city. The resolution was for a new stadium project that will move the AquaSox to downtown Everett.
BREAKING NEWS: The Everett City Council has selected the downtown Everett site, just east of the Angel of the Winds Arena, as the location of Everett’s proposed outdoor multipurpose facility. pic.twitter.com/D5nZuDQlBf
— Everett AquaSox (@EverettAquaSox) December 19, 2024
The council voted 7-0 to approve the decision on Wednesday.
Per a story from Alex Halverson of the Seattle Times, the approved future location will be just east of Angel of the Winds Arena between Hewitt and Pacific avenues. Angel of the Winds Arena is where the Everett Silvertips of the Western Hockey League play. The new stadium will reportedly cost between $102-133 million.
According to Halverson's story, the council envisions the AquaSox's future home to be multi-purpose, hosting United Soccer League teams, concerts and local school athletics. The new stadium was approved over another potential resolution featuring a remodel of Everett's current home, Funko Field. The approved downtown site will be a "short walk" from Everett Station and a future light rail station.
New MLB rules force organization's minor league teams to have modern stadiums with updated and modern facilities, hence the reasoning for either a remodel or a new stadium entirely. If the city failed to comply, they would likely lose the team entirely and subject the Mariners to hefty fines.
A remodel would have been a temporary fix and would have cost around $71-83 million, per a committee report mentioned in Halverson's story.
There's still a lot of logistics for the council to sort through before ground breaks for the new stadium. But for now, it looks like Seattle is keeping its High-A club in the Pacific Northwest.
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