Spokane Public Schools considers stadium purchase | News

Joe Albi Stadium has housed concerts and sports events for 62 years. However, the stadium and its main function as a hosting site for high school football and soccer could be in danger unless the Spokane Public School District steps up to purchase it.

The City of Spokane currently is looking to liquidate some of its properties, including Joe Albi to clean up it real estate.

"Part of it is just, do we really till need this?," said Jan Quintrall of the City Business and Development Services.

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The Mead and Spokane School Districts currently hold a lease with the city to use the field until 2016. But with the city looking to sell off the property, the districts would need to find a replacement field.

If the Spokane Public Schools owned the stadium, it said each hosting high school would be able to run its own concessions and keep the money for fundraising efforts.

The district said it would also renovate the stadium and bring down the seating capacity from 23,000 to 8,000. The cost for that project would be put to taxpayers several years in the future.

"Each time we've run an bond issue, we've promised the tax payers that we wouldn't increase taxes. So the tax rate has stayed the same and we would want to that in 2015 without raising taxes," said Brown

The school district is also considering whether it should renovate its five home fields instead. However, they said some communities are worried about limited seating and parking.

"Does every community want to have a couple thousand people coming every Friday night to play football?" said Spokane Public School Capital Project spokesperson Greg Brown

The school district said buying Albi could cost the same a renovating the fields or building a new stadium altogether.

The city said the Albi property is assessed close to $15 million but the city needs an appraisal value before it can sell.�

The school district said the purchase is in its preliminary stages. They are waiting to hear from the city about how much Joe Albi Stadium is worth.