Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Buffalo Bills fans and others across Western New York continue to wait on progress towards the finalization of details within the official deal to build a new football stadium for the team across the street from Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park.
The latest facet of the stadium deal that will likely be completed within the next week is the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQR) process that was presented to the Erie County Legislature more than a month ago. Come Thursday, Jan. 19, the Legislature is expected to vote on whether or not the environmental review shows a negative impact on the location where the new Bills stadium is slated to be built.
According to Legislature Majority Leader Tim Meyers, he expects the vote to be in favor of approving the findings of the SEQR review, which will then allow for the next steps of the process to commence to finalize the stadium deal.
Once the environmental review process has been finalized, it will officially kick in a new 30-day "exclusivity period" for the negotiating parties involved in the entire process to complete the final details of the stadium deal in its entirety.
While Meyers is not part of every negotiation taking place with certain aspects of the overall stadium deal, he believes there is "a good chance" that the stadium deal could be finalized and voted on by the end of the 30-day period.
"I'm not privy to all of them, I'm part of the CBA agreement, this-and-that, but the building part, the other sides; you have to remember this is an enormous project. But I think once this goes through, it's going to be a good indicator that everything is getting closer to moving on, and that's where we want to be," said Meyers on Thursday during committee meetings at the Erie County Legislature.
When it comes to any concerns for Meyers in his position with the stadium deal, he says there will always be concerns when dealing with a project of this size until pen is put to paper and shovels start hitting the ground.
"If you were not worried about something, something's always going to come up. This ain't a perfect world that we live in, and things are going to change and you're going to have stumbling blocks," Meyers said. "But I'm confident that all the agreements that need to be in place will be in place."
Conversations and negotiations pertaining to the Bills stadium deal have been ongoing for several months, with a number of different parties all coming to the table to hammer out the final details. While Meyers admits some of the conversations are tough with more people involved, it's imperative for everyone to be willing to weigh in on what everybody's contributing to it.
"I guess the biggest thing is when you get into these negotiations, not to have the biggest ego in the room, and you work through your differences, bring them up and then you move on," he said.
When it comes to the SEQR review, it may be the big domino that needs to fall before the other details of the stadium deal also come afterwards.
Larry Quinn, former minority owner of the Buffalo Sabres, was part of the process in the 1990s that led to the construction of KeyBank Center in Downtown Buffalo, replacing the Memorial Auditorium as the new home of hockey and other entertainment in the city.
While he admits he's not privy to the conversations of what's going on with the Bills stadium negotiations in Orchard Park, he did also have to follow the process of waiting for the environmental review from the state before a deal to build a new facility could be finalized.
"If they're at SEQR and they're about to take a vote, they'll vote on what impact the project has," said Quinn on Thursday. "Once you get to that point, it allows you to enter into agreements. They're probably having to get the SEQR process finished before they can sign documents... but it's a necessary step in the process before you start doing binding commitments."
As Quinn points out, the SEQR process is always an easier one if the host municipality - Orchard Park in this case - has a clear plan ahead. While it was a significantly big change when it came to the construction of KeyBank Center back in the '90s, Quinn feels the new stadium in Orchard Park won't affect the process as much.
"It's a big change, I suppose, but it's also across the street from an existing football stadium. It's not like you're changing traffic patterns, or any of those kinds of things really, or certainly not in a significant way. In fact, from what I understand, they're going to be improving them," Quinn said. "So different issues, different sites, but Erie County's had their football stadium there for, what, 40 years now, maybe longer. So I can't imagine that there's a big environmental issue."
"I think the fact that the new facility is really in the general vicinity of the current venue, it's really going to help streamline a lot of the environmental questions and environmental issues," added John Cimperman, owner of Barnstorm Sports and Entertainment on the SEQR process. "It's a venue that already attracts 70,000 fans on any given Sunday, so that really shouldn't change when they move across the street and have 60-some-thousand fans on a game day."
Given his perspective and observing the process from an outside view, Cimperman feels confident a completion of the SEQR process will then allow for the chips to fall where they may in order to finalize the other elements of the Bills stadium deal.
"While everything is under review now, obviously plans and the vision for the project have been in the public eye now for 12-18 months," he said. "I don't anticipate any real surprises in the environmental process. I think that was really one of the prime reasons that the organization chose Orchard Park, just because there's already precedents for traffic, parking and other environmental issues."
Cimperman knows it will be the approval of the SEQR process that really is what is needed in order to proceed with any sort of construction in Orchard Park. Other than that, as long as the final details are hammered out, he doesn't see any other issues from this deal getting done.
"This project - I know some of the construction partners that PSE has brought in to the process, have been working behind the scenes on this for over a year - I don't see any major red flags," Cimperman said. "It's just going through the process, as you would with any construction project of this magnitude."
