Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN/WGR 550) - It was nearly a month ago when a deal was agreed upon by the Buffalo Bills, Erie County, New York State and the National Football League that will see the construction of a new stadium in Orchard Park, replacing the current facility - Highmark Stadium - that has been the home of the team since 1973.
While there's still a number of documents and other agreements that must be handled and finalized before any shovels hit the ground, the work is already underway to have a plan in place for the design and development of the new stadium.
That part of the process will be in the hands of Populous, a globally-recognized design firm that happens to be the largest firm in the world dedicated to designing sports and entertainment facilities.
In the coming months, Populous will be the lead designer of the new facility in Orchard Park with their architectural services. In addition, the firm will also work with their landscape architects, urban planners and interior designers to bring a one-of-a-kind experience for Bills fans outside and inside of the new stadium.
What will make the new Bills stadium stand out from other facilities in the NFL is it will be designed with football being the main objective in mind. The hope is for construction to commence as soon as possible, with the goal of having the Bills move in to their new home to open the 2026 season.
Related
While the new stadium in Western New York will be designed with a "football first" philosophy, certain design aspects of the stadium will also have a "fan first" mentality to enhance the game experience.
"At Populous, we understand the magnitude of the things that we do, what the impact that our design work has on communities and on the future of franchises, and we don't take that lightly at all," said Senior Principal and leader for the NFL marketplace, Scott Radecic. "We will be using every experience that we've had over the last 40 years as a firm to bring that information and bring that design thinking into this process to make sure that we create a stadium that when people in Buffalo approach it, they say, 'I didn't know what this was going to be, but this is everything I ever imagined it could be.'"
There are a number of different ways the folks at Populous are looking at certain design areas of the stadium that will give the fans in attendance the best football experience. Not only does the design team have to think about the design of the stadium for fans, but also the latest trends for fans looking to take in any given Sunday during football season.
"I think across all of our projects now, we look at the way the younger generations deal with mobile, social media, Instagrammable moments. They're craving information, real-time," said Senior Principal and fellow leader for the NFL marketplace, Jonathan Mallie. "Explorations that we do - in terms of even potentials with augmented reality, tracking player stats - these things are all in their infancy, but they're definitely here to stay. So when we think about stadiums of the future and when we do our global summits that cover some of these topics, we're constantly questioning across all different sports and typologies. What are the aspects of stadiums of the future? That's how we've got to stay ahead of the game."
One way this can help the Populous team with the design of new features in the stadium is by taking a look at different areas of the stadium to enhance a fan's experience. It is exploring the areas that fans may have never thought or wanted to watch the game in the past, but now creating a destination.
One of Populous' previous projects is a good example of looking at new ways for fans to take in games. T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, home of the National Hockey League's Vegas Golden Knights, was opened in 2016 with a couple of unique features for the fans the higher up fans go.
At two corners of the arena across from one another features a tower club, home to bars for fans to take in the action from up above, overlooking the ice and the crowd below.
At the other end of the arena is a flight deck that features "The Fortress," where the Golden Knights conduct not only some Vegas-like pregame shows, but it's also an area for fans to congregate and experience the game in a new way.
The concept of a "flight deck" or tower clubs are certainly being looked at as potential ideas with a new Bills stadium in the near future.
"With the fan base in Buffalo and the decades and the history, you have your fans that have been around forever and they may just want their seat and they're place to go get their beer. But then you have 'millennials' and 'Gen-Z' and the younger generations that we've found through all of our work and statistics that we look at, they crave social experiences. They want to move around," Mallie said. "There will be social decks to experience the game in a new way. Maybe you spend a portion of the time in one seat and then kind of migrate to a different area. We might have platforms that are integrated in some way with the scoreboard. We'll create these opportunities that challenge the traditional seating bowl, but also, at the same time, kind of maintain that seating bowl continuity and to keep that visual and audible atmosphere inside."
In addition to exploring ways of entertaining the fans high and above the field level, Radecic and the design team at Populous are looking into ideas for the fan experience on and around the field.
"The current stadium hasn't had a service level. It hasn't had a chance to do much field-level hospitality," Radecic said. "We don't know yet to what degree we'll be able to incorporate or will incorporate those things, but we definitely want to look at ways - is there something new and different we can do with something down low and close to the field? Is there something new we can do at the back of the upper deck that people haven't thought about before. We're going to be exploring both field-level and vertical, and see maybe there's something new that happens out of those ideas."
And like many stadiums in today's NFL, this "football first" facility will give fans the ability to see the field of play when walking through the concourses.
"We think one of the things that we really want to explore is the idea that all of the concourses would be open to the field, so that when people are on those kind of courses, they're always visually connected to the field of play," Radecic explained. "Whether they're in their seat or whether they're kind of moving around the stadium, how can we make sure that everything about this building is about the game of football, and the connection that the fans will have to the field of play no matter where they are in stadium?"
When it comes to "premium seating" of the new stadium, every market has a different concept as to what they consider "premium seating." There's plenty of factors that go into the location of those seats, and the Bills are still in the process of conducting market studies and focus groups to understand some of the priorities and interests of the fans, especially season ticket holders.
"One of the things that we will want to find out and hear is how important is it for people in premium seats to be warm and be heated," Radecic said. "How important is it for them to be covered? What is their desired place to be located? Is it in the lower bowl, or is it at some type of elevated area that's above the lower bowl? I think that all those things are going to be important for us to understand before we can definitively say, what is the distribution and how is that going to work in the stadium? So we will start to look at concepts and ways to configure it, but we will be waiting until some of that information becomes more definitive."
As stadium negotiations were starting to heat up last summer, Pegula Sports and Entertainment's Executive Vice President Ron Raccuia spoke of previous studies the team had conducted with fans in the past when it came to fan experience. When it came to discussions of braving the elements for an outdoor stadium, Raccuia said fans generally didn't mind the cold weather. It was a matter of fans staying dry that was a talking point for the new stadium.
The new stadium in Orchard Park will, indeed, be an open-air facility with the roof expected to cover around 80% of the 60,000-seat building.
While the design of the roof for the new stadium is still in its early phases, Populous does have a set of criteria they must meet for the facility, with some designs of other stadiums around the world being a potential model for the stadium in Western New York.
"We do know that when the ownership saw the building in London that we've recently designed at Tottenham, there were some aspects of that building that ownership liked," Radecic said. "There were some aspects about that roof coverage that ownership like.
"Ownership is adamant that we will play outdoor football in Buffalo. That's the history, and that's the future. We're going to play outside, and yet, we're still going to be looking for ways to to cover folks. So we're going to be exploring various ways to do that. To see that how we can most-efficiently and effectively cover the most amount of fans when they're sitting in their seat in the seating bowl."
"We want to cover as many fans as possible, and we want to provide heating elements to the greatest extent possible," Mallie added on the roof design. "That's part of that fan comfort that has to come along with a stadium built for Buffalo football, which will be outdoors and it will have that energy and the atmosphere of the weather. It'll be the best of both worlds."
While the design process is underway, the Populous teams says there is no definitive timeline, at this point, of when Bills fans will get their first look at any renderings of a new stadium.
Related
You can listen to Part 3 of our conversation with Radecic and Mallie in the player below: