The $18-million O’Fallon Park Recreation Complex finally opened its doors in North City on January 21.
Hundreds of residents and community leaders flooded in to tour the 76,000-square-foot center on Saturday. Families were excited to see the indoor and outdoor pools, both with two-story waterslides. The double gymnasium has 12 basketball hoops, volleyball nets and an elevated running and walking track.
The YMCA of Greater St. Louis will operate the center, and the city’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Forestry will oversee it. The Boys and Girls Club of Greater St. Louis will provide youth and teen programs.
“It was a day of people standing together and being proud,” said Alderman Antonio French, of Ward 21 where the project is located. “There were battles we fought along the way, but those are in the past. What’s important now is that people will have a place to improve their health and be safe.”
French was speaking about a political battle last summer to secure discounted membership fees for residents. French pushed for $25 annual youth memberships for city residents under 18 years. The YMCA offers discounts of up to 90 percent for low-income city residents. Other memberships range in price from $33 to $44 per month for adults.
The event’s speakers included Mayor Francis G. Slay, Board of Alderman President Lewis Reed, President of the Aldermanic Black Caucus Terry Kennedy and state Senator Jamilah Nasheed.
“It is a landmark facility in that it’s state of the art, right here in North City,” Kennedy said.
Inside the center, a plaque displays all the names of the African-American Aldermanic Caucus who pushed to get the facility built and to make sure a workforce inclusion ordinance passed before its construction.
“We wanted to make sure people that looked like us were working to build it,” Kennedy said.
The project employed 33 percent minority workers – about 98 percent of whom were African-American.
Although many said it couldn’t be done, the project exceeded the city’s 25 percent minority workforce goal, said Zachary Hamilton, vice president of Kwame Building Group Inc., who was the construction manager for the center.
Aside from workforce, 40 percent of the project’s contractors and subcontractors were minorities, and eight percent were women, which exceeded the city’s goal of 25 percent minority-owned business enterprises (MBEs) and 5 percent women-owned business enterprises (WBEs).
At several points in the process S.M. Wilson, the general contractor, asked for additional money – $2.174 million – to achieve the minority participation goals.
In a Feb. 9, 2012 letter, S.M. Wilson VP Fred Jaeckle stated that achieving these minority participation goals “has been difficult and our company has experienced the tremendous hardship in finding minority firms to meet the rigid requirements established by the St. Louis City Ordinance 68412 and S.M. Wilson’s agreement with the City of St. Louis.”
The City of St. Louis awarded $1,173,888 to S.M. Wilson because of their “hardship” in achieving the minority goal. However, Comptroller Darlene Green said she would not approve any further requests from the contractor.
Had the city paid S.M. Wilson everything the company asked, the project’s total contract value would have been about $19.6 million.
According to city records, Kwame advised the city not pay any additional charges.
“The facility came out under budget, and we met the goals we set out to achieve,” said Tony Thompson, Kwame’s CEO and chairman of the board. “You did not have to pay a premium to have that level of minority participation. The city did a good job of holding their feet to the fire.”
