Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - It was nearly a month ago when a deal was agreed upon by the Buffalo Bills, Erie County, New York State and the National Football League that will see the construction of a new stadium in Orchard Park, replacing the current facility - Highmark Stadium - that has been the home of the team since 1973.
While there's still a number of documents and other agreements that must be handled and finalized before any shovels hit the ground, the work is already underway to have a plan in place for the design and development of the new stadium.
That part of the process will be in the hands of Populous, a globally-recognized design firm that happens to be the largest firm in the world dedicated to designing sports and entertainment facilities.
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In the coming months, Populous will be the lead designer of the new facility in Orchard Park with their architectural services. In addition, the firm will also work with their landscape architects, urban planners and interior designers to bring a one-of-a-kind experience for Bills fans outside and inside of the new stadium.
Once the design plans have been agreed upon and the other paperwork associated with the project has been finalized, construction of the stadium is expected to take place with the expectation for it to be ready for the start of the 2026 season.
In the meantime, though, the team at Populous will be busy with a lot of design work, and a lot of critical decision-making with pricing and other progressions during the design period.
"Our team is of a considerable size right now, but it'll be growing throughout the process. And as we add in all the layers of engineering and all the different disciplines, it builds more-and-more momentum, and it's all based on a very critical schedule that's been laid out, that will get us to that opening," said Senior Principal at Populous and one of the NFL marketplace leaders, Jonathan Mallie. "This project happens to be set up quite well, in terms of that schedule and that process, and understanding what critical decisions need to be made in order to save time and money, whether it's during design or construction."
"The process of design is something that is a very deliberate process. It allows for times for thinking to be very divergent, then it also calls for times for things to be convergent and come back together," added fellow Senior Principal at Populous and another leader for the NFL marketplace, Scott Radecic. "Working with Legends Project Development, the Buffalo Bills, working with the construction manager, all of the entities working together in a prescribed schedule that we have a history of always hitting our design deliverables and our construction deliverables to make sure that the building's on time."
The team at Populous focused on the design of the new Bills stadium have also had the privilege of helping design and develop other "state-of-the-art" stadiums across the globe. However, this facility in Buffalo will have quite the distinction from other projects the firm has worked on in the past: It will be designed with football being the main objective in mind.
"This team, the city, the way that they think about football, everything about this stadium needs to be that, in terms of the visual atmosphere, the audible atmosphere, the way that the fan approaches the building. We want them to feel like they're approaching a football game," Mallie said. "The ownership group made that loud and clear. We've embraced it as a guiding principle, probably the No. 1 principle. We're going to develop a design and a look and feel that enhances that spirit. It's a challenge, and we're excited to do it."
When focusing in on the "football first" aspect of the new Bills stadium, Radecic certainly has some familiarity when thinking about it from the standpoint of the players. He spent 12 seasons playing in the NFL as a linebacker, three of which in Buffalo with the Bills from 1987-89. He believes that will be a key part of designing a "football first" stadium with how fans are able to engage with the player, and how the players engage with the fan.
"I think some of the recent stadiums that have been designed have really focused on the premium seating along the sidelines, and sometimes you can have a tendency, or it's possible to lose the intensity of the fandom of the building. We want to make sure that for this project for the Buffalo Bills, and the fans of the Bills, the focus is when you come into the building, it is on the field," Radecic said. "From the seating bowl, the intimacy of the seating bowl is important. The proximity of what that field wall experience is like for players and fans to engage with each other is really important."
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In addition to having a focus on "football first" for the new Bills stadium, the design of the new stadium will also have to live up to the "state-of-the-art" moniker similar to many of the recently built facilities around the globe. But how difficult is it to design a "state-of-the-art" stadium in 2022 when by the Year 2026, something that is considered to be "state-of-the-art" now could be considered "yesterday's old news"?
One thing the folks at Populous are constantly thinking about is the future, and designing facilities for the future well-beyond its year of construction.
"The future of live events, the future of live sporting events, and what does that mean, what trends do we see, and what trends do we create. We're constantly looking at what's impacting fan behavior, and what are fans looking for, and the different demographic makeup a fans," Radecic said. "Part of our job is looking forward. We're not designing a stadium for 2022, we're designing a stadium for '26, for 2030, for 2035. We also know that things are going to adapt and change, so we're thinking about how can we put flexibility and adaptability into what we do, so that you can take some things apart and put it back together a different way over the course of 30 or 40 or 50 years, and still maintain the viability of the building."
As agreed upon in the Memorandum of Understanding, the price tab for the new stadium in Orchard Park has been set at $1.4 billion. When seeing a number of other newly constructed stadiums around the NFL, some people may look to see how this facility in Western New York will pop and captivate football fans compared to other stadiums.
While it may be tough to match the likes of SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles - given it's $5.5 billion price tag - or even other facilities like Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta or U.S. Bank Stadium in Minnesota, it all comes back to what will make the new stadium in Buffalo different: It's functional efficiency as a "football first" stadium.
"It's about the fan experience. How can we design it from the inside-out in a highly-compact, highly-efficient way that provides all of the amenities and hospitality that's expected of today's generations, and also do it in a cost-effective manner," Mallie said. "This stadium won't look like some of the stadiums just mentioned, it's going to look like a football stadium. It's going to connect with the fan base in a way that just hasn't been done before. Our approach would really be to see, like, how can we bring the seating bowl in and make a very efficient sort of chassis that makes up the stadium, and that will create intimacy and an intimidation factor for the opposing team."
As for the $1.4 billion price tag for the new Bills stadium, Radecic says working on a budget is something that the group at Populous is used to dealing with and working with when designing different professional sports venues.
"You take all of that initial criteria, and you approach the project in a way for whatever the dollar value is that the ownership group can spend that how do we make sure we create the greatest experiences possible for the people and the fans that are going to be attending those events," he said.
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Living in Western New York for a few years, Radecic has a good understanding of the people and what the Bills mean to the community. When it comes to applying the Buffalo culture and Buffalo flavor into the design of the new stadium, he says there are some ideas that are being floated around to make the facility in Orchard Park its own.
"Some of the ideas and the things we think about actually happen behind the scenes where fans don't see it. It's things that we would do for the players in the home team locker areas or down around the service level that, as a former player with an intimate understanding of pregame, halftime, postgame - we're also going to work closely with Sean [McDermott] and Brandon [Beane] and the football staff as well - to do some things that may not have been done in other buildings, but it will be the right thing to do, insightful thing to do in Buffalo for the team. There's things like that," Radecic said.
"The other thing, too, is understanding the nature of folks in Western New York and having lived there for a number of years, and the camaraderie and sense of family that people have. The divinity they have for the Buffalo Bills, making sure that the stadium enhances those abilities to gather, to be together, to stay connected to the game - whether you're in your seat or on a concourse - whether you're sitting in the North, the South, the East or the West, no matter where you are in the building, having places that you feel like you're in someone's living room or you're at your local pub-type area. You feel like you're at home. When you've come to the stadium; you know that feeling when you walk in the front door, and it's like, 'I'm home, I take my coat off and this is where all my family is and my friends come,' it's that type of atmosphere for the 60,000 people that will be at the stadium."
Back in December, the Empire State Development corporation unveiled renderings for a new Bills stadium as part of a study for both a location in Downtown Buffalo, as also in Orchard Park. The artistic renderings as part of the study, dating back to 2019, were done by Populous but only for illustration purposes.
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Many people are already anticipating the release of renderings for the new stadium, and getting a glimpse of the future of what's to come in Orchard Park. While the design process is underway, the Populous teams says there is no definitive timeline, at this point, of when Bills fans will get their first look at any renderings of a new stadium.
"We do need to really initiate this process and push it forward, and make sure that by the time renderings are revealed, that adequate pricing has been done, there's sign off by ownership, and it's what we're going to build," Mallie said. "Absent of that, there's always the potential that there could be significant modifications, and then you're changing your trajectory. So this project will do it right, and we'll get the renderings out at the right time."
As for Radecic, he boldly said renderings could be ready for release in "a few months."
More to come from our conversation with Radecic and Mallie of Populous on Thursday. You can listen to Part 2 of the interview in the player below:
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