Ballpark spending fuels debate

Some on NLR City Council question paying for upgrades

The North Little Rock City Council discussed the sod, seeds and dirt Dickey-Stephens Park will need next season after sinkholes and flooding have damaged the home of the Arkansas Travelers.

Mayor Terry Hartwick insisted the city only has a contractual obligation to fix the playing surface, but the Travelers have asked the city to fund roughly $5 million in other upgrades.

With the long-term future of the Travelers in doubt, some members of the North Little Rock City Council questioned why the city should pay for upgrades to the stadium. Hartwick took two items off Monday night’s council agenda that would have authorized spending on the ballpark.

Hartwick said he would support spending about $6.5 million to fix the stadium’s field, which has long been plagued by flooding and sinkholes.

Following up on that promise, Hartwick used his executive powers to put down a $9,000 deposit on sod that will be used to replace the field before the 2023 season. The sod deposit will go to Pennsylvania-based 4Most Sport Group. The sod is estimated to cost up to $700,000, but the council has yet to approve the funds.

“We go in and we put all this in, there’s no guarantee that they will stay,” said Council Member Debi Ross, of Ward 1. “So it’s a tough one.”

The city has also pledged to spend about $6 million to

install wells that will prevent sinkholes from forming on the field. But fixes to the playing surface are not enough for the Travelers, who have asked the city, which owns Dickey-Stephens Park, to pay for $5 million in other upgrades to the stadium’s clubhouse, batting cages, field lights, bathrooms and air-conditioning units.

Hartwick said the city is required to pay for upgrades only to the playing surface, saying: “I got to deal with the contract that y’all got in front of me.”

“The hard thing is when you see them on TV saying, we’re looking somewhere else and then you’re asking us for all this money,” Ross said. “That’s a really tough one for me.”

Those upgrades are new requirements from Major League Baseball, which requires all minor league teams to meet its new “modernized facility standards,” including larger clubhouses and more facilites for women. Rusty Meeks, executive vice president and chief executive officer of the Travelers, said the team is only committed to playing in North Little Rock until at least 2025.

The Travelers, an AA affiliate of the Seattle Mariners, pay the city of North Little Rock $230,000 a year in rent to play at Dickey-Stephens Park. In the last two years of the lease, 2025 and 2026, the rent drops to $115,000.

Council Member Nathan Hamilton, of Ward 1, said he would be open to supporting city funding for non-field-related upgrades to Dickey-Stephens Park, but only if the Travelers open their books to the city and prove they can’t afford to foot the bill.

“I personally won’t be voting to approve any repairs there beyond drainage until I know that the Travelers themselves — who have income — can’t make those repairs themselves,” Hamilton said.

The Travelers moved from Little Rock to North Little Rock in 2007 after voters approved a sales tax referendum to finance a new $32.6 million stadium. Dickey-Stephens Park was designed to have easy access to the downtowns on both sides of the Arkansas River, but its proximity to the water and being built 10 to 12 feet below ground has caused issues with flooding since it opened.