Ryan Field rebuild shows positive signs on hiring targets, but no concrete data yet

In the months since Evanston’s City Council approved the Rebuild Ryan Field project, Northwestern University has been busy making its stadium visions a reality.

On Central Street, the old stadium has been demolished, and trucks have removed a massive volume of earth to create the new stadium’s below-grade bowl. A temporary stadium is now in use along the university’s lakefront, and it seems to be a big hit with Wildcat fans. And the city is starting to use university funds promised in the stadium’s town-gown agreement for projects ranging from an affordable condo development to subsidies for bicycles and electric leaf blowers.

But more than seven months into active work, Northwestern has shared very little about its less-visible promise to hire minority- and women-owned business enterprises (M/WBEs) for at least 35% of the subcontracting work on the project. As outlined in the university’s memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the city, NU promised to “publicize its progress” toward this target by sharing a “transparent outline of efforts and reports at each major stage of the project.”

Despite this, the university has not released any data or information on its hiring progress at the time of writing, while the project itself has already finished its first major stage of demolishing the old stadium.

When the RoundTable asked Northwestern and the city when this data would be available, a university spokesperson promised that a “detailed progress update” would be shared “in the coming weeks.” Two City Council members confirmed this report will be shared with a city committee in October.

Between various engagement opportunities and partnership efforts, both public and private, Northwestern and its general contractor are undoubtedly putting in effort – and the early signs do appear to be positive. But the lack of concrete information speaks to the challenge of monitoring such a massive private development from the outside, especially given the nuances between contracting and hiring goals and the city’s shift away from including a public advisory council established by the MOU in the process.

Defining participation

Understanding these challenges starts at the foundation: What do the project’s “participation” goals actually mean?

In the text of the MOU, Northwestern promises to “develop a local hiring and contracting program” that “reasonably target[s]” at least 35% participation by M/WBEs in the stadium’s design and construction. As Northwestern’s project website explains, this means paying at least 35% of the “total subcontracted spending” on the project to local M/WBEs.

While a specific dollar amount is not included, Northwestern has previously estimated this figure to reach approximately $208 million. The MOU also requires that “priority [be] given to Evanston-based businesses,” but it does not set a percentage of Evanston businesses to target.

This commitment was a significant part of the public conversation around the stadium project when it was up for city approval; it was touted by both Northwestern and support group Field of Opportunities on their respective websites, and university representatives referenced it when speaking to both the Land Use Commission and City Council. Mayor Daniel Biss included it among his reasons for supporting the project in a letter sent to residents the day after he cast a tie-breaking yes vote to approve the project, including future concerts at the completed stadium.

“There’s been a lot of discussion about Northwestern’s commitment to working with minority- and women-owned businesses,” Biss wrote at the time, “but it bears repeating: their 35% target is game-changing, both as an opportunity for small- and medium-sized local businesses to establish themselves and grow and as a path to careers for Evanston residents.”

While Northwestern made the commitment and signed the MOU, the entity tasked with making that target a reality was the Central Street Consortium, a joint venture of industry giants Turner Construction and Walsh Group. The consortium serves as the project’s general contractor and is thus in charge of bidding out to and hiring all of the subcontractors that will participate over the course of construction. 

When asked about the project’s progress toward both contracting and hiring goals, a Turner Construction manager involved in the Ryan Field project directed the RoundTable to Northwestern’s communications team. The RoundTable accordingly sent a list of questions to Northwestern for this story, including what the current best estimates are for M/WBE and Evanston participation in the project at time of writing.

University spokesperson Eliza Larson declined to answer specific questions, but wrote in a statement that NU and the consortium “remain committed to creating economic opportunities” through the project.

“We shared at the beginning of this project that our target for total subcontracted spending with local, minority-owned and woman-owned businesses is 35%,” Larson wrote. “We are on track to meet that goal and plan to release a detailed progress update in the coming weeks.”

A more precise estimate was given by Council Members Eleanor Revelle (7th Ward) and Bobby Burns (5th Ward), who separately told the RoundTable they expect Northwestern to deliver an update on its M/WBE targets to the city’s M/W/D/EBE Development Committee at its meeting on Oct. 16.

Partners pursuing hiring goals

While the main contracting data lies with the consortium, some of its partners can provide their own, smaller subsets of data on other project goals, such as in workforce hiring. Among these is the Rebuilding Exchange, an Evanston-based nonprofit that aims to reduce and reuse construction material waste and train people seeking careers in building trades.

Aina Gutierrez, executive director of the Rebuilding Exchange, attended the M/W/D/EBE Committee’s February meeting to share details about the partnership. In a letter to the committee, she wrote that the Rebuilding Exchange is working with Northwestern and the consortium to meet the project’s “ambitious hiring goals.”

“Northwestern University and Turner-Walsh Construction have identified a workforce goal of 10% of all construction hours on the project performed by individuals with Evanston roots,” Gutierrez wrote, “which we estimate will be 50 people needing to be placed during the course of the 30 month project.”

This hiring goal isn’t included in the project’s MOU and is separate from the 35% subcontracting target discussed above. Its narrow focus on recruiting Evanstonians distinguishes it from the 35% target’s “local” scope, which can include companies from across the Chicago metro area.

Gutierrez told the RoundTable that the Exchange is pursuing the hiring goal through its existing pre-apprenticeship program, which trains people in building trades and graduates them directly into apprenticeship programs. She said this helps create more labor supply for local developers who sometimes find it difficult to source workers locally. The program trains more than 50 people each year, and its most recent cohort of 17 trainees included 10 recent graduates of Evanston Township High School.

“Anyone can apply to our program through our website and otherwise, but we are intentional about ensuring that Evanston residents are able to join our training programs,” Gutierrez said.

As Gutierrez put it, though building trades have “traditionally been very exclusive,” these days they “can’t afford to be exclusive anymore,” adding that a diverse workforce allows both for supply and quality in the trade. She said 90% of the program’s trainees identify as people of color and 16% identify as women – “and that number is growing.”

Gutierrez also said that contractors unburdened by a mandate like the 35% target may outsource labor that isn’t local or are inclined to find workers who already have years of construction experience under their belt. In light of this tendency, Northwestern has been involved in “making an effort” with organizations like the Rebuilding Exchange and has “asked everyone to have a local workforce plan,” Gutierrez said.

The Ryan Field MOU actually designates an overseer of the project’s hiring and contracting targets: a Community Advisory Council made up of three appointees each from the city and NU who will meet at least twice a year.

While most of this group’s work will only be realized after the stadium is open and operating, included in its statement of purpose is the responsibility “to receive updates on Northwestern’s M/WBE hiring during construction.”

At a groundbreaking ceremony in June, Northwestern community liaison Dave Davis told the media that NU was in “ongoing” conversations about the advisory council’s structure with Council Member Revelle, but when the RoundTable asked Revelle about its status in late August, she responded that it would likely not be formed before the stadium’s completion after all.

“I have been thinking of the Advisory Council’s role as focused on the operation of the stadium once it’s finished and once events are being planned and held there,” Revelle wrote in an email to the RoundTable. “So no steps to form the Council have been taken yet.”

Revelle added that the M/W/D/EBE Committee “has the experience and expertise to evaluate NU’s hiring efforts.” Since the group heard from Gutierrez in February, each of its meeting agendas have listed the Exchange’s partnership under one of the committee’s three working groups, though no discussions have been held during full meetings. Burns, the committee’s chair, told the RoundTable that this working group currently meets with the project team monthly to coordinate the continuing hiring efforts.

Benefits, limits of partnerships

For Ryan Field specifically, the Rebuilding Exchange began hosting monthly career fairs after a kickoff session in March, and that same month its team salvaged pieces of the stadium for a week before it was demolished. And beyond the permanent stadium, Northwestern hired a transitional employment crew from the Exchange in August to help set up the temporary lakefront stadium on campus.

The consortium, for its part, has hosted several union information sessions since work began with representatives from unions for carpenters, electricians and operating engineers. It also advertised a Turner School of Construction Management session on Oct. 8 for M/WBE owners in a Sept. 5 newsletter.

The Exchange is working directly with subcontractors in a limited capacity by reviewing their workforce plans and working to fill their vacancies with Evanstonians. Nevertheless, Gutierrez said project partners like the Rebuilding Exchange don’t know who is bidding on the project until the contract has been awarded and specific individual employment opportunities are offered, so she doesn’t have direct knowledge on how close the project is to its 35% subcontracting target.

The city itself is also engaged with the project, with a similar outlook as the Rebuilding Exchange: positive signs on the hiring end, but no hard data to share.

Waiting for data

Jessica Cooper, Evanston’s interim workforce development coordinator, said the city doesn’t have “direct hands” in the project since it’s operating from a “partner standpoint” through the city’s existing Local Employment Program (LEP). City officials are in contact with the consortium and project managers at Turner-Walsh, rather than with subcontractors directly.

“Subcontractors tend to bring in their own teams, and then that may alleviate their requirement of having to hire locally, and so on and so forth,” Cooper said. “Our efforts in this is to make sure that we are supporting Turner and Walsh in this consortium, and making sure that there’s always residents available for these opportunities to be placed based on their standards they set for their project.”

So Cooper, like the rest of the city, is also waiting on the contracting data set to be shared in October. But she added that “independently, [they] have placed a significant amount over [on the project] on those initial parts.” Demographic data on the race and gender of workers the LEP has connected to Ryan Field jobs is “confidential,” she added.

She added that the LEP has an “active database of union and non-union residents” who could be eligible for placement on the project. Since February, the city’s monthly workforce development newsletters have advertised that LEP participants “may have the opportunity to take part in the upcoming construction” of Ryan Field.

City spokesperson Cynthia Vargas did not respond to an email requesting an estimate of how many LEP participants have been placed on the project.

Gutierrez said that although the Exchange’s local employee additions to the Ryan Field workforce is a “drop in the bucket” compared to the project’s budget of at least $800 million, she’s hopeful meeting that target could benefit future projects.

“I think it’s an ambitious number, and I really hope they can reach it,” Gutierrez said, “because I think it really would set a precedent for all the capital projects that Northwestern is going to do.”

Ryan Field rebuild shows positive signs on hiring targets, but no concrete data yet is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston's most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.