Orchard Park, N.Y. (WBEN) - Despite groundwork already underway on site for the future home of the Buffalo Bills, major work will officially commence Monday with the ceremonial groundbreaking of the new state-of-the-art football stadium in Orchard Park.
Representatives from New York State, Erie County, the Bills and the National Football League will be on-hand for Monday morning's ceremony slated for 9 a.m. ET along Abbott Road across from Highmark Stadium. This includes the likes of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, Bills owner Terry Pegula, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.
"It's really exciting. There's a lot of people that have put a lot of time and effort into making this day a reality, and we look forward to celebrating it," said Bills Executive Vice President and COO, Ron Raccuia ahead of Monday's groundbreaking. "As I said many times before, though, it's one great day in what we hope to be a series of great days going forward for the new stadium."
This pivotal moment in franchise history has been months and years in the making, dating as far back as 2018 when it became more clear that momentum was building towards the idea of a new stadium for the Bills in Western New York.
It all started when Pegula Sports and Entertainment announced in November of 2018 a private partnership with CAA Icon to study the current football stadium and hockey arena. The study geared towards determining whether or not the Bills would potentially continue playing at Highmark Stadium, or move to a new stadium, possibly in Downtown Buffalo. This drew some positive rave from Commissioner Goodell, and the chatter of a new facility started to intensify.
From the start, the Pegulas were well-aware that the cost of renovations or a brand new stadium could not be fully put on the fans and residents of Western New York. Terry Pegula said the interest of the fans were at heart, and that would play heavily into any future plans.
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Then in January of 2020, Commissioner Goodell, again, spoke on the potential of a new stadium for the Bills, saying he wants the Bills to remain in Buffalo, and remain competitive regarding stadium quality compared to other teams around the NFL.
Following several months of the COVID-19 pandemic and talks of a new stadium going quiet to the public's ear, Raccuia said the team was ready to open discussions with state and local governments to determine whether to renovate Highmark Stadium, or build a new stadium either near the existing site or in Downtown Buffalo. Those negotiations ended up starting in May of 2021.
In June, the Bills started pursuing plans to build a new stadium, and selected Legends to represent them in negotiations. Legends was picked to help lead the team in planning, project management, sales and partnership for the new stadium.
A couple months later in August, a new stadium proposal was reported with a price tag of $1.4 billion in Orchard Park across the street from the current facility. As part of that proposed price tag, the Pegulas showed their commitment to a new stadium by saying they would pay a portion of that price in a public/private partnership.
More details of that proposal started to come out, as the team was looking to build a facility that included 60,000 seats and 60 suites. It also included a timeline for construction with a completion date pegged for no later than 2027, based on how quickly a deal can be struck.
Another key part of the process came in August when Andrew Cuomo stepped down as Governor of New York State, allowing for Buffalo native Kathy Hochul to take over, and become the lead voice in the push for a new stadium at the state level.
In an interview on WBEN in September of 2021, Raccuia said there weren't many obstacles remaining with a new proposed stadium, other than just focusing on the timing and finding a way to get the something agreed upon. He also said that renovating Highmark Stadium was not something Pegula Sports and Entertainment has any interest in doing for long-term viability.
Then in November, Empire State Development released its study on a Buffalo Bills stadium, recommending the parties proceed with a new stadium over renovation of Highmark Stadium. The study also revealed a downtown stadium would likely add a minimum of approximately $350 million to the cost of the stadium. Meaning it would likely cost, at least, $2.1 billion to build a new facility in the City of Buffalo.
As the months dwindled on, urgency to get a stadium deal agreed upon was prevalent, but many close to negotiations with the county, state and league were confident something was going to be agreed upon.
In March of 2022, the Bills hired the architecture firm Populous to draw up some designs for the new proposed facility, giving fans an indication the stadium deal was getting close to being done.
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A little more than two weeks later on March 28, the Bills, New York State, Erie County and the NFL agreed upon a deal to build the $1.4 billion complex in Orchard Park, which comes with a 30-year lease agreement to keep the team in Western New York for the long-term future. The deal included a combined $550 million of money committed from the NFL and Bills to build the stadium. Meanwhile, Gov. Hochul would commit $600 million from the state for the stadium, and Erie County would contribute $250 million. Any additional cost overruns for the stadium would be on the Bills to cover.
In addition, the new stadium, once completed in 2026, will not be owned by Erie County. The land and all football operations with the new stadium will be transferred to New York State through the Erie County Stadium Corporation, and then leased to the Bills.
Nearly two months after the original agreement of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the new stadium, the Erie County Legislature unanimously approved the agreement, marking the first step of a long process towards formalizing the overall project agreement, which included a laundry list of other items as part of the stadium deal. This included such items as a community benefits agreement, a non-relocation agreement, a project labor agreement, and much more.
Bills fans finally got their first look at the proposed layout of the new stadium in Orchard Park with the team unveiling the stadium footprint with the commencing the required State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) review process.
As time continued to progress, it became very clear that discussions to finalize the project agreement for the new stadium in Orchard Park were going to take more time than originally thought. With a looming deadline of Sept. 1 to finalize plans to build the new $1.4 billion stadium, the deadline was pushed back by 45 days.
45 days later, that deadline got pushed back once again. This time, the state, county and team said a deadline would not be formalized until 30 days after final determination on the SEQR by Erie County.
As fans and Western New York residents awaited the finalization of the project agreement, more details about the new stadium in Orchard Park started to finally come to light. First, it was news that the new stadium would feature a mesh-like exterior aimed to create "wind confusion", meaning when wind hits the exterior of the building, instead of re-directing and finding other avenues to flow at full speed, the wind will end up dissipating significantly as if hitting a screen.
Then in October, the first renderings were released by the Bills, which included two preliminary concepts of the new stadium. One from the outside featuring an extravagant statue of buffaloes, as well as an inside look of the stadium on a game day with the canvas covering around 80% of the seats below.
Since then, the team has released additional renderings of the new state-of-the-art facility in February and March.
Then in December, the SEQR review for the new proposed stadium was presented to the Erie County Legislature in another step that closed in on the completion of this process. It was eventually approved by the Legislature one month later on Jan. 19.
As the weeks passed, more and more agreements and authorizations were completed towards getting the stadium project off the ground. This included:
- Dec. 14, 2022: NFL owners approve the least extension for the Bills at Highmark Stadium, as well as the 30-year lease agreement for the new stadium.
- Jan. 23, 2023: Erie County Stadium Corporation unanimously approves a general project agreement for the $1.4 billion deal.
- March 15, 2023: Erie County Stadium Corporation affirms the general project plan for the new Bills stadium, including the authorization of all the necessary agreements as part of the deal.
In late March, Poloncarz revealed that the cost of the stadium has gone up, now sitting with a $1.54 billion price tag. However, as previously noted as part of the original agreement, the cost overruns would be covered by the Bills.
Eight days later on April 4, Poloncarz announced that negotiations between Erie County, New York State and the Bills regarding project documents for the new stadium were completed, as all parties signed the necessary documents to move forward with construction of the new stadium. That started a 30-day review period for the Erie County Legislature to look over all the documents before giving the final vote of approval for the project.
Exactly one month later on May 4, the Erie County Legislature took the project agreement to vote, and gave its unanimous approval to finally allow for construction to begin in Orchard Park.
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"It's been an unbelievable journey, but anything this important to our fans, our community, our organization, the National Football League, is definitely going to take a long time. Again, it's just a great day," Raccuia said of the years in the making for Monday's festivities. "What I want to do though, is I just want to make sure that we put it in perspective. We're going to celebrate what we've accomplished thus far, but we are definitely looking forward to another 1,000 days of construction and cutting the ribbon on opening the stadium just about three years from now."
In the time since the final approval to begin construction of the stadium in Orchard Park, crews have been working on preliminary efforts, such as ripping up some of the concrete and asphalt, and moving dirt on site before major excavation work will begin shortly following Monday's ceremonies.
"All you have to do is drive down Abbott Road and you see the work that's being done," Raccuia said of progress to this point. "We've been blessed with great weather thus far. Since we started, a lot of dirt has been moved, fences have gone up, large machinery is on site. They're working six days a week, a lot of hours, and they're getting ready for that large dig, which hopefully is going to take place in the next few weeks here."
As for what's to come after Monday's ceremonies conclude, Raccuia says the work will really start to ramp up, and eventually a new stadium for the Bills will start to take shape.
There are also more plans in the works from the Bills that will go more into the future of the stadium than just the construction process.
"We're excited about some things that we're going to start rolling out, in terms of new stadium seating and that type of information. Those will be coming pretty fast and furious over the next several months," Raccuia said. "And then we're really looking forward to the opening of the sales experience center in the Tony Walker Plaza. That's going to happen towards the end of the summer, and it's going to be an exciting day once that's up and ready to go."
Festivities officially begin at 9 a.m. ET on Monday along Abbott Road in Orchard Park.