Play Ball!

...Valley, including the Pavilions, Casino Arizona, the recently opened Talking Stick Resort and Talking Stick Golf Club.

“This is a dynamic location to draw visitors to our enterprises and generate tax revenues and business and job opportunities for our community members,” he says.

Established June 14, 1879, the 52,600-acre SRPMIC, adjacent to Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa and Fountain Hills, includes 9,100 members.

With the community’s approval, the teams selected HKS, whose recent designs include Glendale’s Camelback Ranch for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago White Sox and Cowboys Stadium in Dallas.

In turn, a committee of tribal members, the teams and HKS selected Mortenson as construction manager at risk. Mortenson also built Glendale’s Camelback Ranch facility, Big League Dreams Sports Park in Gilbert, Denver’s Coors Field and Minneapolis’ Target Field.

The structure and design of the new training facility celebrates the community of Pima (Akimel O’Odham) and Maricopa (Xalychidom Piipaash) people.

Traditional dwellings provided inspiration. For example, the main stadium shade canopy is a modern reinterpretation of the traditional ramada shade structure, and the clubhouse buildings recall “sandwich houses” found communitywide.

“The design will showcase baseball and the community’s history and culture, its respect and caring for the land, so we will have the opportunity to call on significant items and images of importance,” says Mo Stein, FAIA, project architect for HKS.

The project continues a 2,000-year tradition of ball games played by Native Americans. Archeologists have unearthed hundreds of Hohokam ball courts throughout Arizona, where teams of men threw a hard rubber ball through a hoop, and women used sticks to hit the ball.

The exterior color palette was inspired by the rocks found at the Salt River, and the names of the fields derive from community structures, places, animals and vegetation, says Ron Moll, P.E., construction team lead for SRPMIC.

Assisting Moll and the design/build team are the community’s departmental divisions, including permitting, zoning, design review, construction management, commercial leasing, environmental services and public health compliance.

Everyone agrees that scheduling has been a challenge. The project team has 12 months to put more than $100-million worth of work in place for spring training 2011, says Bob Hardin, Mortenson’s principal in charge. He is being assisted by project managers Eric Grenz, Kyle Chase, Devin Hunsaker and Craig Streit.

Another unique aspect of the project is the nature of tribal government. “Every decision that needs to be made is never made by one individual,” Hardin says. “Decisions are made as a group/committee.”

Key Players

Owner: Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community
Architect: HKS Inc.
General Contractor: Mortenson Construction
Engineers: Lloyd Consulting Group; WSP Flack + Kurtz; HKS
Landscape Architect: Ten Eyck Landscape Architects
Subcontractors: Construction 70; Shiya-Strephans Contracting; JD Steel; CECO Concrete; Able Steel; Top Flite Steel; Parsons Electric, Tri-City Mechanical