Orchard Park, N.Y. (WBEN) - Demolition of the old Highmark Stadium along Abbott Road in Orchard Park was able to get underway a bit ahead of schedule back in early May. With the help of some nice weather, crews appear to be even more ahead of schedule with demolition of the site than many were expecting.
"I can tell you the one upper deck came down a lot easier than we thought, so that is ahead of schedule," said Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz of the demolition on Friday. "The thought was they would start doing the fill in the bowl, which they've done, and then they would work on the upper decks, and that could take weeks-to-months. As we all know, that upper first upper deck came down pretty quickly, so we anticipate that they're going to have that site pretty flat once all the other things are removed from it in the next month."
Poloncarz says it's possible the site will be flat by the middle of the upcoming season, but there's not going to be much else going on, especially when it comes to parking for the new Highmark Stadium across the street.
"I'm not certain if they're going to move ahead and do anything right away this year. They theoretically could have enough time to put in parking, but there's other things that have to go into it too," Poloncarz said. "If you put in parking where there was no parking before, you also have to redo the drainage because you're going to have to put storm sewers and things like that that don't exist."
As for the future of the site, Poloncarz knows parking was the intended goal for the Buffalo Bills once the stadium was brought entirely down and the dirt in the lower bowl was flattened out. Beyond that, the Bills are still exploring their options.
"The Bills are looking at potentially doing something different, but the county will not be involved in that, from a standpoint of investing in it," Poloncarz noted. "Our investment's done, the $250 million that was invested in the total project. The county and the state were neither responsible for cost overruns, the Pegulas were. And if they want to do something different there, they could, but they've got to pay for it. So the team will be paying for it, but as of right now, my understanding is it's still going to become a parking lot. Just probably not this year."
While the potential of future development on site could involve shops, restaurants and other businesses to make that part of Orchard Park a year-round destination, Poloncarz notes the county will still be involved in future review of projects, even though it doesn't have to put any money in towards it. That's because the site is soon slated to transition ownership from Erie County to New York State.
One plot of land that will mostly remain in Erie County's hands once the stadium construction and demolition is all completed is the old Erie Community College South Campus site. Poloncarz says the county is exploring all options for the future of that site, and what to do with the buildings on the campus.
"They're teaching out, the final programs are coming out now. So once we do that, we have to kind of mothball the site," he noted. "The state's looking at potentially taking one of the buildings for their own purposes, but that's going to move ahead. It just always was we can't do anything until the stadium's complete, and the college is done with what it's doing there, which it pretty much is now."
