One interest group that is already lining up support for a new Pawtucket Red Sox stadium in Providence: Organized labor.
Scott Duhamel, secretary-treasurer of the Rhode Island Building Trades Council emerged from a press briefing this afternoon by James Skeffington, president of the team and quickly said the building trades unions are planning to be vocal backers of the deal.
“We are all in, 100 percent,’’ said Duhamel. “This may end up being our number one legislative priority this year.’’
Under questioning from Rhode Island Public Radio, Skeffington said at a briefing for reporters that the team ownership plans to use “100 percent’’ union labor to build the proposed new stadium on the Providence downtown waterfront. Skeffington also said union labor would be employed to build a parking garage nearby that the new owners of the Boston Red Sox AAA minor league franchise would be part owners of.
The stadium and garage would result in nearly $100 million in new construction in the capital city’s downtown and would be the largest construction project downtown since the building of the Providence Place Mall, a #400 million project completed in the mid-1990s.
