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EDIT: Total cost to taxpayers? Bills select sports firm to represent ownership in building new open air stadium in OP, targeted for 2025


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25 minutes ago, 4_kidd_4 said:

Downtown never made any sense in the first place. Kill prime real estate for 10 weekends a year, kill tailgating etc.

 

Traffic would have been a nightmare, and I can’t even imagine the infrastructure issues as well as shutting down swaths of downtown over the course of a couple of years for construction.

 

The way this shook out is totally my personal preference, open air in OP. Love it.

I have been stuck down there for multiple hours due to Sabres gridlock after a playoff ot game.  When I go to Sabres games I always leave early due to the nightmare.

 

A bills game is unimaginable there without re-working the entire grid and 190.  I'm sure the study brought that to light.  

 

 

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14 hours ago, GETTOTHE50 said:

Not necessarily true. Petco Park in SD helped the surrounding area tremendously. They had a great plan for integrating the stadium with the community. I recommend for anyone to read that plan who has an interest in sports business or development 

 

But a baseball stadium hosts 81 games a year. 

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12 hours ago, SectionC3 said:

I think it’s going on the ECC South footprint. 

I agree. There was an article about this some time ago. It indicated that ECC would basically give the property away in exchange for the Bills covering demolition costs. Staying in Orchard Park seemed inevitable to me once the new training facilities were built. I personally love the atmosphere in OP.

 

Edited by holla83
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19 hours ago, nucci said:

ok but with only 8-10 games a year it doesn't make sense

Not anymore, nucc. We now have 17  regular season games -with an 18th Certainly likely very soon and additional playoff teams. 

Thats a minimum of 10 games with 1 preseason game for a crappy team and as many as 14 if the #1 seed gets knocked off before the Conference Championship. That’s well over a quarter of the calendar weeks.

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11 hours ago, Virgil said:

Allen’s numbers in a dome were better than in open air.  Give our QB every advantage he can get 


over his career or last season alone?

 

year 1 the receiving corps was BAD 

 

The obvious advantages are there in a dome but the ability to play in heavy winds is an advantage 

Edited by SlimShady'sSpaceForce
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36 minutes ago, WotAGuy said:

A new stadium is likely to have a much larger footprint than the present one. I expect they will add some property to the current layout.  As presently configured, the space is too small, unless they raze the existing and build over top of it. As it is, the present stadium is butting up against property lines. 


There were reports in recent years that the Pegs were buying up adjoining land.

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43 minutes ago, May Day 10 said:

I have been stuck down there for multiple hours due to Sabres gridlock after a playoff ot game.  When I go to Sabres games I always leave early due to the nightmare.

 

A bills game is unimaginable there without re-working the entire grid and 190.  I'm sure the study brought that to light.  

 

 

 

I know this is the stadium thread but what route are you taking that you are stuck in gridlock for multiple hours after a Sabres game? Even during peak years I would say I was never stuck in traffic for more than half an hour.

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 I can't help but feel this thread/topic would be way way more popular if not for Beasley's comments.  

 

As for as the stadium I'd still like to see it in OP.  Keep some of it's old school football charms while upgrading technologically for the 2020's 

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Told everyone everywhere every time this came up. It will be open air in OP due to entire financial considerations. I worked in development and govt. I know people in development and govt. Pegulas want this team to be successful and not lose money here. They don’t want to take on tons of debt, they have zero on the team and it’s profitable. They want govt money but don’t want to saddle the taxpayers with more than necessary. In the end, as the beginning like I said, the costs for anything in Buffalo requires hundreds of millions of offsite upgrades to infrastructure-storm sewers, sanitary sewers, water, and roads-just to be able to build the stadium. That doesn’t even include the unquantifiable amount needed to acquire land, which every fool who owned property in the old first ward thought would make them rich. Waaay too many properties to acquire cost way too much time and money. They could buy some outright with honest offers but the hold outs who wanted double or wouldn’t sell at all require the city to undertake eminent domain proceedings, which is a lengthy and costly court battle (See: Kelo v. New London which was due to one property hold out that by the time the court case was settle, the developer decided against the project anyway!). They would be, literally, hundreds of millions into all of this and not a nickel spent on the actual stadium. Now jump southeast to Orchard Park and you have free land, saving millions in acquisition and eminent domain, and existing infrastructure that already supports a 73k seat stadium, saving hundreds of millions.

 

It was a no brainer when this conversation started and remained that way the entire time. Like everything with Bills homers, the emotional and irrational dreamed and the dream of a downtown stadium was just that.

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I think for me I would just like to see a restaurant or shop strip to go along with the stadium. With rumors that ECC is facing financial troubles maybe if they shut down the South campus they can turn some of that into restaurants. That was my thing with a stadium downtown. Yeah tailgaiting would take a hit but restaurants and bars on game days would boom. 

 

I just don't want a MetLife stadium where they build a subpar new stadium in the middle of nowhere. 

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1 hour ago, SoCal Deek said:

Simple: Build the new stadium in the parking lot. Tear down the current one when it’s done. There are lots of ways to accommodate the parking inconvenience in the two seasons it’ll take to get it done. You don’t have to move everything to Pennsylvania. 

ECC lots.  That’s where it’s going.  Close Abbott on game day and use existing lots plus new lot space where existing stadium now sits for parking.   Done. 

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2 hours ago, BuffaloBill said:

 

Expense and scale of stadium. Open air will likely be less costly to build and potentially larger.

Even better.  We’re being moronic and cheap at the same time. 

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48 minutes ago, holla83 said:

I agree. There was an article about this some time ago. It indicated that ECC would basically give the property away in exchange for the Bills covering demolition costs. Staying in Orchard Park seemed inevitable to me once the new training facilities were built. I personally love the atmosphere in OP.

 

Me too.  I heard demo at ECC might be expensive because of asbestos issues.  But surely cheaper than buying off everyone in the ward who won’t seek if the plan would have been to build downtown.  And, unless they put in a rail spur to try people there from Toronto, there are minimal infrastructure costs at ECC. 

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20 hours ago, Greg S said:

 

A lot of them will get priced out though. At Giants Stadium both the Jets and Giants had 78,000 season ticket holders as well as people on a waiting list. I think the Giants still sellout with season ticket holders but the Jets don't. They having been trying to sell seasons and individual tickets since MetLife opened.  Either people don't want to pay it or can't afford it. It sucks but that is the reality with new stadiums.

I feel like, if your team is good enough year in and year out people will be willing to pay the price. When your team sucks, like the Jets, it becomes hard to justify spending the money. 

However, you can always sell seats to games you don't want to go to, to make up some of the cost. 

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Not gonna get into an argument about what makes sense. Just going on the record saying this fits my personal preference for a game day. Love the unique experience our tailgate environment provides as opposed to other NFL venues and I love open air games. Just feels right. Pure. 
 

Went to the game in Lucas Oil a couple years ago. Amazing crisp fall weather during the walk up. Felt like game day outside. Then you walk in and the whole feel just went away. Felt like walking into a shopping mall. The wife and I both hated it. 

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