CONSTRUCTION INFORMATION & LINKS:
COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION PROGRAM:
The Minnesota Ballpark Authority (MBA), Mortenson Construction, the Minnesota Twins and Hennepin County agreed to specific project goals for hiring subcontractors and suppliers as well as employing women, minorities and small businesses.
Mortenson Construction, Target Field's construction manager, used its multi-faceted Community Participation Program to reach the goals while the MBA monitored the progress and worked with the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights to track the results.
The program consisted of several sub-programs:
Small, Women, Minority Business Enterprise (SWMBE)
Workforce Diversity
Community Workforce
Resource Center
Outreach
Below are the final Community Participation Program numbers for the Target Field project:
Small, Women, Minority, Business Enterprise (SWMBE) Program
The project goal was 30 %
Final Participation: 34%
130 different SWMBE firms were awarded work with 90%local firms
50% of the SWMBE firms were suppliers and 50% were subcontractors
29 firms had multiple contracts and 18 firms had prime contracts
Workforce Diversity
The Project utilization goals were 25% minority and 5% female
Final Participation: 26% minority and 7% female with approximately 2, 038, 000 total hours worked
There were 1,000 workers on the project at its peak and 3,500 total workers
Community Workforce Program (CWP)
The project goal was 50 participants; 62 individuals were hired.
The referral organizations were Summit Academy (35 hires), Construction Careers Coalition (7 hires), Merrick (2 hires), St. Paul College (2 hires) and the Bricklayers Youth Development Program (1 hire). The remaining 15 hires were 3 applicants and 12 first year union apprentices.
The CWP is intended to provide entry level craft labor employment opportunities for motivated unemployed and under-employed Hennepin County residents. The CWP provides short -term “hands on” industry experience from which participants can learn and identify a career path should they desire to pursue opportunities within the construction industry. The MBA worked with Summit Academy OIC and the Minneapolis Urban League to recruit individuals for these positions.