The future of Eugene’s civic stadium is on the agenda at tonight’s (Wednesday’s) 4-j school board meeting.  The owners of the emerald ballpark are hoping someone else will take it over.

Civic opened in 1938. It’s a wooden stadium and has an old-fashioned manual scoreboard. The Eugene Emeralds lease it from the 4-J School District.

Kelly McIver: “The board has no current or future plans to do anything with civic. The issue is that the facility itself continues to deteriorate.”

4-J spokesman Kelly McIver says the stadium needs a lot of renovation work.

Kelly McIver: “The district won’t be putting that kind of money into the facility just to sort of hang on to it and continue to lease it to the Ems. That’s not part of our mission.”

McIver says the board would love it if someone else would buy the property and keep minor league baseball there. At their meeting tonight, the board will hear from a real-estate consultant who has been looking into the property’s value. Some folks have nominated the site for historic preservation.  The University of Oregon has recently announced its plan to build its own stadium near Autzen.