El Paso, TX – The Company that built Downtown ballpark; should finish Sportspark reconstruction in about four months, officials said

 

County negotiating with Jordan Foster to complete Sportspark.

The county is negotiating with Jordan Foster Construction, the company that built the Downtown ballpark, to finish the long overdue El Paso County Sportspark renovation.

County officials expect Jordan Foster to resume work at the Sportspark more than a year after legal issues with the former contractor and architect put the reconstruction on hold. The project, which was supposed to take eight months to complete, started in October 2012.

A contract is expected to go before the County Commissioners Court for approval in the next 30 days, said Norma Palacios, the county’s assistant public works director.

It would then take Jordan Foster about three months to complete the work, Palacios said.

The county selected Jordan Foster through a process called job-order contracting, in which qualified companies are on a sort of on-call list for certain types of projects.

The process is faster than a traditional bidding process, county officials said, because it cuts the time it takes to procure engineering, design and contracting companies. As part of the process, Jordan Foster was one of four companies interviewed by a panel of five people.

A contract amount is expected to be determined in the next couple of weeks, Palacios said.

“Because of the job-order contract process, we now can concurrently negotiate with the contracting firm and don’t have to wait until the architect finishes its job to put the work out to bid,” County Judge Veronica Escobar said.

Earlier this year, the county hired Carl Daniel Architects for $187,500 to oversee the pending construction at the 45-acre Sportspark at 1780 N. Zaragoza.

Escobar said the architect’s work is about 90 percent completed.

County Commissioner Carlos Leon, who represents the East Side area where the Sportspark is located, said he is satisfied with the selection of Jordan Foster.

“I’m very confident that a company such as Jordan Foster will start on the project and finish it. We will have a beautiful completed park in the very near future,” he said.

Jordan Foster Construction is a partnership by C.F. “Paco” Jordan, Paul L. Foster and Darren Woody that merged CF Jordan Construction and Franklin Mountain JFC.

Jordan Foster completed the Downtown ballpark in under a year.

Leon said there is still much work that needs to be completed at the Sportspark, including four fields, a pro shop, a clubhouse and batting cages. Six fields are currently open to the public.

The county is still in a legal dispute with Sunlight Enterprises, the company that was awarded the original $7.5 million Sportspark contract in 2012; the architectural firm Parkhill, Smith and Cooper Inc.; and the bonding company, RLI Corp.

Part of the litigation involves money that the county withheld from Sunlight Enterprises after the company did not complete the project on time.

Leon said that while the legal problems are resolved, the county will move forward to complete the park.