Bills new venue ‘light work’ to start in April

Article posted by Coliseum, March 21^st, 2023

Image: Buffalo Bills & Populous

One of the final hurdles has been cleared for moving forward on building the new stadium of the National Football League (NFL) team Buffalo Bills at Orchard Park in New York, US.

‘SPECTRUM NEWS 1’ stated that the Erie County Stadium Corporation voted on leasing land to the Bills recently on which to build their next facility.

The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league’s American Football Conference East division. The team plays its home games at the Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, New York, US.

The 71,608-capacity Highmark Stadium is a stadium in Orchard Park, New York, US, in the Southtowns of the Buffalo metropolitan area. The stadium opened in 1973 as the Rich Stadium and is the home venue of the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL).

The 62,000-capacity planned venue of the Bills would cost $1.14 billion and will be built adjacent to the Erie Community College’s South campus across the street from the Highmark Stadium, which would be demolished. The stadium will be designed by the celebrated design studio Populous, who has previously designed 12 other active NFL stadiums, with which the new Orchard Park stadium will share numerous design elements and features.

The Erie County Stadium Corporation is a subsidiary corporation of the New York State Urban Development Corporation d/b/a Empire State Development whose purpose is to facilitate the performance of the essential Governmental functions in connection with the construction and use of the stadium located in Orchard Park by the Buffalo Bills NFL team.

‘SPECTRUM NEWS 1’ further stated that the Erie County Stadium Corporation approved of the project, and plan to have light work starting in April, with “big digging” in June.

The $1.14 billion stadium will be funded with $600 million in State taxpayers’ money, $550 million from the Bills purse and $250 million from the Erie County purse.

Said Stephen Gawlik, Senior Counsel for Empire State Development, “This was kind of a culmination…I think we’ll be all set.”

The new stadium is expected to open before the 2026 season.

Buffalo, New York (US)-based the Empire State Development is the umbrella organization for New York’s two principal economic development public-benefit corporations – the New York State Urban Development Corporation and the New York Job Development Authority.

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