Orchard Park, N.Y. (WBEN) - As construction continues on the new Highmark Stadium, some properties nearby the state-of-the-art facility haven't been sold yet. However, some of these lots have huge price tags to them.
But one real estate expert says price may not be the big factor.
Peter Hunt of Hunt Real Estate says there are two other factors.
"No. 1, I think the Town of Orchard Park is kind of concerned about the zoning and what will happen in terms of development there. Secondly, there is a development plan to kind of a retail community, fun event kind of space that's around a lot of newer stadiums around the country, like in Glendale, Arizona," said Hunt in an interview with WBEN.
Hunt says the nature of the development business is another factor.
"A lot of commercial projects today are just on hold," he said. "You might have seen, for example, major developers like [Douglas] Jemal who are putting a lot of projects on hold. And that goes for a lot of other developers too. I think that may be the more fundamental reason. It's just costly to do development deals today, and every one of those parcels is, at least in theory, a development site. So I don't think this is unnatural, I think it's just a matter of the circumstances existing in the in the marketplace today."
Whether the prices of unsold properties are within reason, Hunt says that's not for him to say.
"The market will tell us that. But I guess everyone who's owned those properties for a long time would like to be able to capitalize on them," Hunt believed.
He adds somebody's going to have to be able to predict pretty well what they can do with that property, and what the profit and loss is going to look like after they complete their project.
"My feeling is I think there's a lot of owners that would like to press the market upward, and I think some of the asking prices reflect that. But beyond that, the market will tell us whether or not those those prices are the right prices," Hunt said.
The new Highmark Stadium is set to be complete in 2026.