Joint venture to build $27.6 million Arkansas Travelers baseball stadium

The joint venture partnership of East-Harding Inc. and Hensel Phelps Construction Co. of Little Rock, Ark., has been selected to build the new home of the Arkansas Travelers, the AA minor league team for the Anaheim Angels.

HKS Architects of Dallas will design the $27.6 million project. The stadium will be located in North Little Rock with a panoramic view of the Arkansas River and city skyline.

In August, the citizens of North Little Rock approved a 1-cent, two-year sales tax to help make the ballpark a reality. The project will break ground in January, with delivery in time for the first pitch of the April 2007 season.

Contractors hail executive order

An executive order signed by Gov. Mike Huckabee has made Arkansas the first state to ban union-only "project labor agreements" on state-funded construction projects.

The order was a pre-emptive strike by the Associated Builders & Contractors since PLAs restricting bidding to only those contractors using unionized labor have not been an issue in Arkansas. In other states, however, PLAs have been blamed for running up the cost of government construction projects.

The contractors association hailed the executive order as a victory for taxpayers and free-market business because it requires bidding on projects funded, entirely or in part, with state dollars to be open to union and non-union contractors.

Huckabee declared that promoting open competition and maintaining neutrality between union and open shops is particularly important as the state enters a phase of intensive upgrading of school facilities in response to the state Supreme Court's ruling in the Lake View school funding case.