Orchard Park, N.Y. (WBEN) - The new Highmark Stadium is set for the bright lights of prime-time, as the $2.2 billion facility will open its doors for regular season football when the Buffalo Bills host the Detroit Lions on Thursday night in Orchard Park.
Over the last several weeks since officially opening the stadium to the public on June 23, Bills fans and others across the region have been afforded the opportunity to check out the new state-of-the-art building through stadium tours offered by the team, or by getting to watch the players either in an open practice or during preseason action.
For Bills superfan Del Reid, founder of 26 Shirts and a staple of the "Bills Mafia" community for more than a decade, the new stadium means so much more than just a new home for the Bills.
"I grew up thinking that maybe the Bills are going to move someday, and now to have this permanent fixture, right here in Western New York, they're not going anywhere," said Reid in an interview with WBEN.
Reid has been a Season Ticket holder with the team for years, and has already been through the football-first facility on a number of occasions. The prevailing thought on his mind whenever he pulls up to the new stadium in Orchard Park is how out of place it looks, but in every good way possible.
"Just walking into that building, it's the most unBuffalo thing in Buffalo, and I don't mean that as a detriment to the stadium or Buffalo. It's just such a unique structure that we have here now, just to enjoy everybody's favorite thing, the Buffalo Bills. It's amazing," Reid said. "Never thought it was going to happen for so many years in my life, and now that it's here, it's just incredibly surreal."
Unlike the old Highmark Stadium, which once stood across the street, Reid loves the ability for fans to have a view of the field and the game action from just about anywhere in the new stadium.
"It doesn't matter what section you're in - whether you're in the 100s, 200s, 300s, 400s - you're close to the game," he said. "It used to be in the old stadium - which we all love and we all kind of miss - if you're in that last row in the 300s, you had a better view of the moon sometimes than what's going on in the field. So for the 400 level, especially for it to be so relatively close to the action, it's really cool."
While the old stadium did have its charm that Bills fans will cherish well after it's officially flattened off, Reid feels the new Highmark Stadium will provide so much more for the community in the years to come for Western New York.
"We're standing right here in front of the Family Circle, and it already has like a park, pretty much, built around it. And as we're waiting, I'm pulling up and I see people getting out, and they're just unloading their stroller or some older folks just putting on their walking shoes and just getting ready to like go around the Highmark Trail here and everything. So it's really become, in a lot of ways - I say that now when it's not snowing - a year-round attraction for people to come and check out and see, and walk around," Reid said.
Reid feels the Bills have done a great job building the area around the stadium out.
"It's not just a big concrete stadium in the middle of a parking lot. It's very special," he said. "There's so many different nods to the history of the team, and even 'Bills Mafia' has its own little marker in the Family Circle, which is really cool. I did not expect that. I just think they've done an amazing job putting this whole thing together, and it's special."
As one of the founding members of the "Bills Mafia" movement, Reid admits it's a bit surreal with how much the team has embraced that notion of family, where it's now a moniker to the identity of Buffalo and Bills fans.
"I remember a few years ago when they announced they're going to be building a new stadium, or even thinking about that, you see the '12th man' on the Ring of Honor, or the Wall of Fame in the old stadium, thinking, 'It'd be cool if maybe they either added 'Bills Mafia' or replaced 12th Man with 'Bills Mafia'.' They went way past that. That is all over the stadium," Reid said with a laugh. "It's cool, and it's nice to be a tiny, small, little footnote in my favorite football team's history."
And in his many conversations with other members of "Bills Mafia", Reid can sense the shared excitement and relief that the Bills are here to stay in Western New York for the long-term.
"There was this black cloud that was hanging over our fandom for so long, 'Are they ever going to move to California or Toronto or anywhere like that?' No, they're staying put. So I think that's the biggest thing," Reid said. "Now we can really complain about the roster and what's going on on the field, because all the drama surrounding the team has kind of settled down. They're not going anywhere. Now we can just really enjoy the team for what it is - an amazing piece of entertainment for us on Sundays and Mondays, and sometimes Thursdays. But also the representation of the community to the world at large."
