Saints stadium builders promise minority hiring

Builders of the new Saints stadium in St. Paul's Lowertown neighborhood say they want about a third of the 500 construction jobs to go to minorities and women.

St. Paul officials said today that the project would ensure that minorities and women are included with a plan that calls for 32 percent of workers to be minorities and 6 percent women.

Toward that end, Mayor Chris Coleman a two-year recruiting and training effort for the project. It will include a Web-based clearing house and job fairs near the worksite. Coleman said the project will pay workers an average of $48 an hour, for a total of $4 million in wages.

"That's the kind of wage you can raise family on," Coleman said. "That's why it is so critically important that the people that are working on this project reflect our community."

The goal, which aims to reverse longstanding discrimination, is part of the Twin Cities' larger effort to close the disparity in construction hiring that puts minorities and women at a disadvantage.

Calvin Littlejohn, who runs Minneapolis-based Tri Construction -- one of the two firms working on the Saints ballpark -- said he is building more than a stadium in Lowertown.

"Us being a small African-American owned construction company located within the metro area, we see the demographics and also understand the whole plight of how a lack of jobs impacts our community," Littlejohn said.

Recent studies by the Washingon-based Economic Policy Institute show black workers in the Twin Cities have three times the unemployment rate of their white counterparts, among the widest gaps in the nation. Experts say construction employment both reflects those differences and represents a potential solution, offering an entry-level opening to good-paying careers.

"I see it every single day," Littlejohn said of the need for a more-diverse workforce. "I live in north Minneapolis, so I personally have a charge to make sure that construction as a whole starts to reflect the overall demographics that reflects the community."

His company is already doing project management along with its much larger partner, Ryan Construction. The two teamed up to win the bid to build the new 7,000 seat ballpark in downtown St. Paul.

City officials say the plan is based on binding goals written into city ordinance. They also match goals set for a much larger project, the $1 billion Minnesota Vikings stadium set for a groundbreaking in Minneapolis this fall.