SPRINGDALE : Play ball! Park ready for Naturals
Posted on Saturday, March 15, 2008
SPRINGDALE — Mayor Jerre Van Hoose, wearing a hard hat and a wide grin, questioned Friday how sore his arm would be after throwing out the first pitch next month.
In his hand were certificates of occupancy, building documents that take Arvest Ballpark from a construction zone to a working stadium. Finished one day before deadline, the publicly funded baseball park is ready for the Northwest Arkansas Naturals, a Class AA affiliate of the Kansas City Royals.
The Naturals play the San Antonio Missions on April 10 in the 6, 500-seat, $ 33 million ballpark designed by stadium designer HOK Sport of Kansas City, Mo.
The 20-month flurry to bring the minor leagues to Springdale began with a contentious July 2006 election and ended Friday when Crossland Construction handed a ballpark key to Van Hoose.
Before walking into the facility, the mayor deflected praise from himself to others for the accomplishment.
“The most important person here is her,” he said, pointing to Planning and Community Development Director Patsy Christie. Because of a broken right leg, Christie arrived in a wheelchair. But not even a shattered tibia, pieced back together with plate and pins, could dim her joy.
“I knew we’d get it done,” she said. “I told you we’d get it done.”
In the parlance of the contracting world, Arvest is “substantially complete,” meaning that the building can be used for baseball and that it meets all safety and fire codes. But Friday, the site still was busy with people hauling debris, laying mulch, power washing steps, and working from atop ladders.
Had Crossland missed the deadline, it would have been penalized $ 325, 000 — the rent due to the city from Rich Baseball, which owns the Naturals.
Crossland finished on time because of extended work hours, a two-week extension authorized by the City Council, the ability to staff the site with hundreds of laborers, and favorable winter weather, when the earthwork began.
Lined with 25 luxury suites, the sunken stadium bowl features excellent sight lines for fans.
“This is no longer a construc- tion zone, so we can get ready to play,” team general manager Eric Edelstein said. “To go from a vote to a stadium [in such a short time ] is virtually unheard of.”
Although the construction phase of the project appears to be under control, other issues remain unsettled. By contract with Rich Baseball, the city has the right to host up to 10 non-baseball events each season.
As of Friday, the council had no framework for marketing the stadium for concerts and exhibitions. Events are seen not only as a way of bringing notoriety to Springdale, but of raising cash for city coffers.
Alderman Bobby Stout said he found a sample event contract from Peoria, Ariz., which owns the Peoria Sports Complex. The Peoria facilities are used by the Seattle Mariners and the San Diego Padres for spring training and player development. The complex is available for rent and is used primarily for concerts, art shows, exhibitions and outdoor weddings. The sample contract obtained by Stout has guidelines for rental rates, insurance requirements, fees and fines.
Stout said he’s confident the city still can book Arvest Ballpark for all 10 events, even though the only confirmed event is the April 19 Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.
“The planning should have started a year ago,” Stout said, acknowledging that city leaders have been slow to laud the ballpark as one of the region’s marquee venues.
The City Council has known about its event privileges since September 2006, when the contract with Rich Baseball was approved. The 18-month delay on creating an events plan doesn’t sit well with Alderman Kathy Jaycox, who, during last year’s budget season, urged her colleagues to hire an individual or firm to book events.
As aldermen pieced together a budget that included a hiring freeze and flat estimates on sales tax returns, Jaycox’s request fell on deaf ears.
“There is no plan in place,” Jaycox said Thursday. “We have nothing. I was thinking of signature events that could set us apart in this region. ‘Hannah Montana’ — how do you get her here ?” referring to the character the teen-age actress Miley Cyrus plays in the Disney cable channel series of the same name.
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