NASHVILLE, TN – Steel is being hung for the MLS Soccer stadium at the Fairgrounds but local ironworkers aren’t on the job. LPR Construction, a nonunion company out of Colorado, got the contract.
“I do have some members of this local that are working on the stadium but the substantial part of the stadium, which is steel erection, we didn’t get any of that,” said Jacen Davidson, president of Iron Workers Local 492.
Davidson said he has been chasing jobs at the Fairgrounds for his members for three years. “That’s all non-union,” he said.
Nashville Machine Company is doing the HVAC and plumbing for the new stadium and it is a signatory to union locals in those trades.
MLS Soccer owner John Ingram and Stand Up Nashville (SUN) signed a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) in September 2018. Largely because of the fanfare surrounding the CBA, the Metro Council approved the stadium deal.
There is no language in the CBA requiring Nashville Soccer Holdings to use union labor but Ingram promised to use highroad contractors and hire locals for permanent jobs at the Fairgrounds paying at least $15/hr. So far, the CBA has produced few jobs for local residents.
“The contractor that’s currently doing the steel erection on that job did not have the capital to bankroll that job and they had to cut a sweetheart deal with the fabricator (steel supplier) to be able to get paid every two weeks or they’d miss payroll. That’s not a high road contractor that’s a low road piece of “expletive”, that’s what that is,” Davidson fumed.
LPR Construction bid the soccer stadium job $500,000 less than a local company in order to get the contract. Denver-based LPR operates that way all over the country, according to Davidson.
“They go in and cut the knees out from under these other bidders…. and then when they get their foot in the door, they start hitting the owners and general contractor with unforeseen costs.“
“It’s a business tactic,” he said. Bidding jobs near or below cost is not illegal but it’s a cutthroat business strategy with relatively low risk.
LPR did the same thing with the National Museum of African American Music contract at 5th and Broadway. Davidson said that LPR also underbid the mixed-use center at Austin Peay University in Clarksville.
“They were $200,000 cheaper on the Clarksville mixed use center. They beat a local guy out of three jobs in this town. We’re not happy about it but there’s not a whole lot we’ve been able to do about it. They are just cheaper and that’s what everybody’s taking. They’re taking the cheapest price,” he said.
In those cases, the general contractor went back to the local company, Sentry Steel, based in Hendersonville, and asked if they could rework their numbers but it wasn’t possible. “They bid the job to make a small margin of profit and they can’t cut that profit or they can’t stay in business,” Davison said.
He predicted LPR will find excuses to inflate costs of the Austin Peay University sports center project and Montgomery County taxpayers will end up paying for them. Holding the company to its bids would stop such underhanded tactics but apparently that doesn’t happen often.
For example, the improvements made at the Fairgrounds, prepping the site for the soccer stadium, were projected to cost $50 million. Metro agreed to pay half and the Ingram group would pay half. Cost overruns were at least $19 million. Mayor John Cooper renegotiated the soccer deal in February 2020 and Ingram absorbed those extra costs.
But local workers didn’t get the steel construction work. It went to out-of-towners who are being paid decently, given a housing allowance, and will leave Nashville when the job is done, according to Davidson.
The Mayor’s office and Nashville Soccer Holdings had no comment.
