Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Let the shovels hit the ground for construction!
The final vote of approval was given by the Erie County Legislature on Thursday during a special Economic Development session to finalize the project agreement for a new state-of-the-art football stadium for the Buffalo Bills in Orchard Park.
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For Legislators, this new stadium deal is a slam dunk for not just the Bills and "Bills Mafia", but also for residents of Western New York.
"I'm proud of our Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz for his stellar leadership in getting us here. This is monumental," said Erie County Legislature Chairwoman, April Baskin on Thursday. "It has been decades upon decades since Erie County has seen a new stadium, and we certainly have yet to see in the history of this county a construction project of this magnitude coming our way. Proud of our Governor in the State of New York, and very excited to become a 30-year future partner with the Buffalo Bills, and I thank them for their leadership as well."
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Over the past couple of days, Legislators gathered in Legislature Chambers at the Old County Hall in Downtown Buffalo to go over one last review of the project documents associated with the stadium agreement.
It was just over a month ago that the Bills, Erie County and New York State had signed and finalized the project documents for the construction of the stadium on Abbott Road across the street from Highmark Stadium.
"It's an outstanding document and well thought out, constructed, and it gets us out of the stadium business. It doesn't get us out from paying for the stadium, because quite frankly, we're all New York State taxpayers, but at least it's spread over the whole state now until the state owns the stadium, so it's off our back," said Legislature Minority Leader John Mills on Thursday. "That's saving $12 million after five years of construction, and we'll start to save that money when they implode the stadium that we're playing in now. It's a good situation, because let's face it, the Buffalo Bills are part of the fabric of our community. It's an economic force in our community. It's a marketing force in our community. So it's a win-win, and it's a good document. I'm happy to be part of the vote today."
While Baskin and other local leaders in the Legislature have been part of the process with putting together the details of this expansive stadium deal, she admits she never put much thought into the impact this agreement will have on the community for years to come. That wasn't realized until the final votes were accounted for and the gavel was hammered to signify its approval.
"We've been having the same talking points over the last year-and-a-half now about this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, a once in a generation construction project. But it was at that moment where I hit the gavel where I realized what my colleagues and I were able to achieve," Baskin said. "It's a massive construction project that is a billion dollar construction project, multi-year. It's gonna employ a lot of people, not just during the construction, but even after the stadium is here and done. So just really, really thankful to the County Executive, the Governor and my colleagues here in the Legislature for this pivotal moment in Erie County history."
Poloncarz was appreciative of the Legislature's approval of the stadium agreement on Thursday by a unanimous 10-0 vote. He commends the Legislature for doing their due diligence with the review, and checking off all the boxes before giving their final stamp of approval to allow for construction to begin.
"I was asked by someone, 'Am I happy that this is over with?' I said, 'Well, one part of it's over with. Now we actually have to build the stadium'" said Poloncarz following Thursday's vote. "The county will be intimately involved in that process, though the Bills through Gilbane | Turner - their construction manager - will be the ones that will be overseeing it. We'll be reviewing it, we'll be constantly watching it to ensure the terms of this deal are being followed, as it pertains to the construction of the stadium.
"This is a great day for our community. This is the day we can officially say the Bills will be here for the next three decades. ... I don't expect to be County Executive forever, but I will be a Buffalo Bills fan forever. If I'm 80-years-old, I'm not gonna be County Executive, but the Bills will be playing in the stadium that we approved today. That's something that I'm very proud of."
While many people locally thought the Bills were not going to be moving from Western New York over the last several years, Poloncarz says that was not necessarily the case when speaking with some of his other colleagues elsewhere in the nation.
"When I was dealing with my colleagues across the country and hearing from others, the response to 'The Bills are not going to move,' it was like, 'How are you going to keep them there? Three teams have moved since we did the last lease extension, and all three of those markets are much larger than Buffalo.' St. Louis lost its team, San Diego lost its team, Oakland lost its team. And there are other larger markets that do not have a football team that would like to have a professional football team, an NFL team," Poloncarz explained. "It was kind of funny as this all went along, I heard from people saying, 'The Bills are never gonna move,' and then I hear from people across the country saying, 'The Bills are gonna move.' So we had to construct an agreement that ensured that the team stayed here, but it was a good agreement for the locality, and that's what we did."
As this new stadium deal is set to keep the Bills in Western New York for, at least, the next 30 years, other parts of this agreement are also going to benefit the people of the region for years to come. This includes a strong non-relocation agreement, a beneficial project labor agreement, and a community benefit agreement that will bring back $100 million to the community over the life of the 30-year lease.
"The strongest community benefit agreement ever entered into by an NFL team. No other NFL team has entered into a community benefit agreement like this one. I'm proud of it," Poloncarz said. "I'm proud of the work of our team, our negotiating team, I'm proud of the work with the Legislature. We often talk about politics, there was no politics involved in this. This was governing, this was doing what's right for our community, and I'm very proud of it. It's a legacy project."
"We have never in Erie County had a community benefits agreement affiliated with our NFL negotiations. The fact that we are standing here today and that is a part of this deal, it makes me feel extremely proud," Baskin added. "I'm also proud of the community oversight that is a part of it. I'm proud of the fact that even after the project is done, there is going to be a $100 million investment overall, for the totality of the lease into our communities across Erie County. I'm super proud of Majority Leader Myers and Minority Leader Mills, who joined me on the negotiating team to making sure that other caveats, like making sure that concessionaires and retail businesses are a part of this deal and they have an opportunity for upward mobility through this. It's a huge, huge deal, and we've never had a CBA before affiliated with our football negotiations. We do now."
With the stadium deal now officially approved and set in stone going forward, construction on the ground of the site in Orchard Park is expected to commence over the next few days. Bills Executive Vice President and COO, Ron Raccuia said in a statement major construction of the new stadium will begin with excavation starting in June.
Poloncarz says while this project is a three-plus-year project, with substantial project completion targeted for late September of 2026, it will go by really fast.
"If you think about where we were just to how things have gone in the last four years, this four years seems like it's, in some ways, been an eternity. But when it comes to the construction, it's gonna go by really fast," he said. "It's going to be, 'Hey, they're digging a hole. Hey' they're putting pilings in. Oh, my Lord, the structural steel's going up. It kind of looks like a stadium now!'"
And with the guarantee now that the construction of the stadium is happening, the wheels will quickly be set in motion with local workers being at the forefront of the project.
"We want to start seeing some of our local subcontractors begin to get work, and figuring out how our workforce is going to be included," Baskin said. "A lot of that is in the hands of the administration to oversee, and that is things that they negotiate directly with the Bills. But in terms of having a legal deal before us that is inclusive of our local workforce, inclusive of our marginalized communities, the Legislature did their job today in making sure that was secure."
"There will be some that will probably be brought in from outside this area, because we don't truthfully have enough workers to handle the size of the project, but the vast majority of the iron workers, the laborers, the electricians, the plumbers, the carpenters are all going to be local. That means that money is gonna go back into our economy," Poloncarz added. "Let's just give an example, if an electrician works on the project and they make $20,000, as a result of that and the job that they did, that's going to come back into this economy. It's going to go into grocery stores, it's going to go into restaurants, it's going to go into movie theaters, it's going to go all over the place. That's going to make this investment, a strong one for the community, because that money's gonna get spent over and over, which of course, helps grow our economy."
While work will commence in a short matter in Orchard Park, Poloncarz adds there has been no set time or date for any ceremonial groundbreaking to occur on site of the new stadium.