City Engineer to recommend ballpark construction group Tuesday at City Council

The City’s engineer in charge of the baseball project is going to recommend on Tuesday that City Council choose a group for the ballpark construction.

That group consists of local construction company C.F. Jordan Construction and national firm Hunt Construction Group, which built Busch Stadium for the Cardinals in St. Louis.

A main motivator for the deal is keeping business local.

“We want to make sure that the local business community has a chance to compete for the subcontracts on this project,” said City Enginner Alan Shubert.

And the project is taking shape. The clock tower, designed to be around the stadium, is supposed to have elements of the Kress building – unique to El Paso architechture.

And El Paso-inspired design requires a local company on deck, according to Shubert.

“So I didn’t ask them ‘how are you going to work with local businesses on this project. I said I show me your track record for how you’ve worked with local businesses on other projects,'” Shubert said.

Shubert said 94 percent of subcontractors hired by C.F. Jordan are local. But building a ballpark will require outside hands.

“I can tell you this won’t be 94 percent because they don’t build digital scoreboards in El Paso, they don’t build AV systems for stadiums in El Paso,” Shubert said. “So there are specialty things that I know absolutely will not come from here but when it comes to the bid trades – concrete, steel, electrical – some of these things I felt are critically important that our locals be allowed to compete.

Out of the $50 million approved by City Council to build the ballpark, a maximum of $40 million will be for the construction group.

And this is the last move before it’s full steam ahead to demolish City Hall.

“The contractor is literally looking over the designers shoulder doing cost estimating,” Shubert said.

Three other construction groups submitted proposals.

They are:

Mortinson Company – A national firm that’s worked on fort Bliss.
National Company Turner – Currently working on the Tornillo Port of Entry. They teamed up with Byers, a local construction group who built the Cielo Vista Library.
EMJ – A national company with a local office working on The Fountains at Farah.