The Bombers want to upgrade their facilities to the same level as most of the other clubs in the competition and to reshape the ground to be the same dimensions as the MCG.
But the club needs both the Essendon Cricket Club and the Essendon Bowls Club to relocate in order to be able to achieve those goals.
Both the cricket and bowls clubs piggyback off the Bombers’ lease with the council, which has just been renewed for a period of 21 years.
The cricket club has agreed to move but the bowls club, which has been at the site for 125 years, recently voted to stay put.
Wednesday's announcement from Evans made no commitment to either moving or staying, but indicated the club was committed to exploring other options.
Moving from Windy Hill could involve either relocating to the Showgrounds or starting from scratch at Essendon Fields, near the airport, or other unspecified options.
But Evans said the preference was to stay at the club's spiritual home.
"I've said that my priority is to stay at Windy Hill, however, our thinking is evolving, and my first interest is in the long-term sustainability of the Essendon Football Club," he said at Windy Hill on Wednesday afternoon.
"And if that means that we do have to move to ensure that we're playing on a level playing field with our competition - and the facility upgrades, make no mistake, have been absolutely huge amongst our competitors of recent years - we may have to go.
"I think it would be very sad. There's an enormous amount of tradition and heritage here which we'll obviously protect and honour - and we love Windy Hill, but we love our footy club more.
"Our footy club's got to play on an even playing field, so we've got to give our team and our coaching staff the very best facilities to ensure that we give our footy team the best chance to win."
“It's a spiritual ground [where] obviously many battles have been won with some of our great players.”
Senior Essendon player Mark McVeigh said keeping the club at the ground would be the best outcome for both the club and the community.
“I know a lot of the Essendon people that have followed football for a long time certainly enjoyed travelling to Windy Hill to watch Essendon and the local people enjoy coming to watch training - if we play in finals, we get 10-15,000 people just to watch training," he said from Sydney.
"It would be very disappointing if we had to leave.
“We bring so much to the Essendon area, the Moonee Ponds area. Even during the week, little kids with their father, like we did with our dad, are having a kick there. The access is open, it's never locked down. They can go and have a kick on the ground and have shots for goals and [losing] that would be hugely disappointing for the local community.”
