Stadium developers report near‑30% participation by diverse and small local firms, diversity-only goal not fully met

Officials involved in the new Smokies Stadium told the task force the project achieved substantial participation by diverse and small businesses during construction but did not fully meet the 17.5% diversity-business target set in the development agreement. Doug Kirchhofer, who represents Boyd Sports/Knoxville Smokies, and Edward Henley, founding principal of Fieldwood Development (contracted to lead DBE/outreach efforts), described a multi-year outreach and workforce-development program tied to stadium construction and operation. Henley said the development agreement set an ambitious 17.5% diversity-business participation goal that excluded small businesses, and the implementation team worked to convert that target into actionable outreach, training and matchmaking. Henley reported a total construction budget near $86 million and said that, when combined, diversity-owned and small businesses performed about $29 million in contract work — roughly 29.1% of the total. He said the subset categorized strictly as diversity businesses reached about 14.7% of the contract value (short of the 17.5% target). Reported counts included 24 businesses categorized as minority-, women- or Latino-owned and another eight defined as small businesses; detailed breakout: four African American/Black-owned, seven Hispanic/Latino-owned, and 13 women‑owned firms among the diversity businesses that performed on the project. Henley attributed some shortfalls to timing and market constraints, including the post‑COVID construction boom and the long lead times prime contractors faced, which made it hard for smaller local firms to prepare for specific scopes until the schedule firmed up. The team responded by holding dozens of outreach events, readiness workshops, office hours and matchmaking sessions, often hosted by the Urban League, and by directing primes to run their own outreach for subcontracts. Kirchhofer and Henley said workforce efforts included job fairs in the weeks before the stadium opened in April and other training events, and they described plans to institutionalize the outreach program during the stadium’s operations phase so the facility can continue to be a community asset over the coming decades. No formal action or funding request was made of the task force; speakers discussed lessons learned for future public‑private projects and invited continued engagement from local stakeholders.