Environmental clean-up and renovation of Ed Smith Stadium:
11/10/2011 “City of Sarasota and Orioles spar over Ed Smith clean up”
The city and Sarasota County entered into several interlocal agreements in 2009 and 2010 when the $30 million spring training complex was approved two years ago. The parties outlined the transfer of Ed Smith Stadium to the county under a number of conditions and included an agreement that $1 million the county owed the city would be placed in an environmental reserve account to be used to clean up the remains of an old landfill that sits under the stadium.
11/10/2011 “Baltimore wants city to pay for new practice fields”
As the costs of an environmental clean-up at Ed Smith Stadium reach $1 million, the Baltimore Orioles are saying the city of Sarasota needs to pitch in more money.
The Orioles last week requested $420,000 to tear up and rebuild fields at its spring training practice grounds, blaming poor drainage on an old city dump buried beneath them.
3/6/2011 “Q&A: Ed Smith Stadium architect Michael Swartz”
5/26/2010 “Two Sarasota firms get Ed Smith contracts”
The county estimates the two projects will create 270 jobs during the compressed construction period. The work has to be done by mid-February in time for next year’s spring-training season. That estimate is probably low since the original project, valued at $32.1 million, was expected to create 500 jobs.
4/18/2010 ”Stadium bidder had input in contract requirements”
The Chicago firm hired to oversee the renovation of Ed Smith Stadium had an advantage over nine other firms vying for the contract: it helped draft the bid specifications for the job.
8/28/2009 “Design of Ed Smith is up to the Orioles”
Taxpayers are paying more than $30 million for the renovation of Ed Smith stadium, but it will be the Baltimore Orioles who will decide just what the new place will look like.
7/30/2009 ”My View”
Undue speed. The full inter-local agreement, with amendments calling for the city to cede ownership and control of Ed Smith Stadium to the county for $1 and cover all cleanup costs, was delivered 75 minutes before the meeting.
Although commissioners had talked about the issues previous to that, they did not see until just minutes ahead of voting the final document with the controversial environmental cleanup amendment committing the city for 30 years.
10/26/2009 “Group alleges Ed Smith cover up”
The report was completed July 17, and Antunes alleged that City Manager Bob Bartolotta withheld that report from commissioners before the July 22 vote to approve the Orioles deal.
Commissioners were only shown a two-page report summary dated June 8.
10/27/2009 “Sarasota wrongly kept stadium report quiet”
Some City Commissioners were most upset they didn’t see the report until now. The document was provided to DEP five days before Commissioners voted to sell Ed Smith to Sarasota County but retain environmental liability for clean-up tied to a stadium renovation.
Environmental Indemnity Ed Smith Stadium sits on a landfill
The Orioles control stadium design, while the City of Sarasota must pay for environmental clean up, with no veto power over the project design or ability to limit the site excavation.
On July 22, 2009, the Sarasota City Commission voted 3-2 to accept full liability for any environmental remediation required by the Orioles construction at Ed Smith Stadium. Calling the environmental indemnification clause a “blank check”, Commissioners Turner and Kirschner dissented. City Commissioners learned less than two hours before their vote that the County and the Orioles wrote this liability clause into the deal. Is the County looking out for the City or the Orioles?
We now know that the City Commissioners were not given the most recent environmental report before they voted to pay full freight for any cleanup required by stadium construction. The report documents vinyl chloride contamination that is made worse by the irrigation required for a major league baseball facility.
