Questions raised about Cal Ripken ballfield in Park Heights
City approves a plan by which the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation picks the contractor and handles the funding.
Above: The Park Heights recreation plan would include a Ripken ballpark straddling a closed Denmore Avenue.
It’s a great idea by all accounts – constructing a synthetic turf, multipurpose ballfield for “at risk” youth living in Park Heights – but then there’s always the devil in the details.
Those details were raised by the Maryland Minority Contractors Association, who charged last week that the city was allowing the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation to dictate the terms of the project – in part to exclude minority business participation.
Both the city and representatives of the Ripken Foundation deny those allegations.
“There is such a need for recreation in this community,” said Carrie LeBow, vice president of the Ripken Foundation, in an interview on Friday. “We are partnering with the city, so the city doesn’t have to pay for all of it.”
In return for a $600,000 donation by the Ripken Foundation – founded by Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr. and his brother Bill – the city will let the foundation pick the contractor and act as the project’s fiscal agent.
Public-Private Partnership
The Ripkens’ direct donation will amount to 30% of the price of the field and surrounding park. The other 70% will come through Maryland Open Space funds and slots revenues appropriated to the city for use in rebuilding blighted Park Heights.
Cal Ripken Jr. and brother Bill (right) at last month’s ribbon-cutting ceremony of the Mark and Betty Butler Field in Harrisburg, Pa., for which the Ripken Foundation donated a synthetic turf field. (pennlive.com)
The Ripken Foundation agreed to the donation on the condition that its “preferred contractor,” Henry H. Lewis of Owings Mills, build the field and the foundation disburse all of the funds, according to city documents. Upon completion of the field, the improvements will revert to city control.
Already the city has spent more than $1 million tearing down two blocks of vacant rowhouses on Denmore Avenue and preparing the land.
The Board of Estimates approved the foundation’s terms following the argument by city attorney Michael Schrock that the project will create a “unique astro-turf field” under the Ripken name. “Not accepting this [donation] would clearly injure the citizens of Baltimore,” Schrock said.
“There is nothing unique about this project that any contractor couldn’t perform,” countered Arnold Jolivet, managing director of the MMCA, noting that an astro-turf field is being built at Frederick Douglass High School – “and the work’s not performed by Lewis Contractors.”
Jolivet added: “We want this park. We need it. We welcome the help of the Ripken Foundation. But it is not legal for the city to allow the foundation to avoid competitive bidding charter provisions and act as the stewart of public funds.”
Minority Goals Questioned
Jolivet further charged that the setup lets the Ripken Foundation circumvent minority business guidelines.
Site of the proposed ballfield on the 4800 block of Denmore Avenue. Vacant rowhouses were demolished more than a year ago. (Photo by Mark Reutter)
The City Charter calls for 27% minority business (MBE) and 10% women-owned (WBE) participation in contracts involving public funds.
In this project, goals of 9% MBE and 2% WBE were set by the minority opportunities office.
Thomas B. Corey, head of the office, said that half of the $2 million cost was excluded from the goals because there are no city-certified minority contractors in synthetic-turf construction.
“The goals look low, but if you look after the exclusion, they’re higher,” Corey told the Board of Estimates.
The Ripken Foundation was not asked to testify before the Board, whose three elected officials – Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young and Comptroller Joan Pratt – approved the agreement.
Price and Quality “Fabulous”
Artist’s rendering of the new field, with an expanded C.C. Jackson Rec Center – Phase 2 of the project – in the background. (Department of Recreation and Parks)
In an interview with The Brew, LeBow argued that the foundation is “meeting all the minority guidelines of the city.”
Asked why the non-profit – part of Ripken Baseball, a multi-pronged company that provides sports marketing, consulting and stadium designs for municipalities – demanded use of the Lewis firm, LeBow said, “We have a commitment to quality, and we have partners that we want to work with.”
“Their price is great and their quality is fabulous. And, remember, we coordinate the project and manage construction, but at the end of the day, we gift the project to the city. We don’t own it.”
Added John Maroon, who handles publicity for the non-profit: “The Ripkens are funding youth development parks in 60 communities, 14 of them completed, including one in Baltimore. The foundation is committed to helping underserved youth living in America’s most distressed communities through baseball-themed programs.”
In 2010, the Ripken Foundation gifted a $1.5 million ballpark on the site of old Memorial Stadium to the Y of Central Maryland.