BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — It's the complex deal with a deadline quickly approaching. New York State, Erie County and the Buffalo Bills have until this Sunday, October 16th, to finalize agreements and contracts related to the new $1.4 billion stadium in Orchard Park.
The original deadline has already been extended 45 days.
"This should have been done already," says Marc Ganis, President of the sports business consulting firm SportsCorp Limited.
"I would expect that the entire agreement is virtually completed except for a couple of individual pieces," says Ganis. "For example, the community benefits agreement."
The community benefits agreement, or CBA, is defined in the Memorandum of Understanding signed on March 29th as "the commitments to be made by the parties that will ensure the new stadium will benefit not only the team, but all segments of the local community including the historically underserved communities in the County."
"I've worked on a number of these stadium deals that have community benefits agreements," says Ganis. "The primary focus on them have been things like employment, jobs on the construction site, local companies and women and minority businesses. Things like that."
Ganis is not directly involved in the local negotiations but believes that it's been finding common ground on the CBA that has slowed down negotiations.
"That's the piece that is holding things up," says Ganis. "The county is working on behalf of the area. The state is involved but there have not been issues there. The Bills have been prepared to do a "standard plus" CBA but the county is pushing for a lot more with the justification, I guess, that there is so much state money going in."
So what is Erie County saying? Not much. 7 News Anchor Jeff Russo reached out to the county for an update, a spokesperson for County Executive Mark Poloncarz says "representatives for the state, county and Bills organization continue to negotiate the terms for all documents related to the construction of a new stadium."
Ron Raccuia, the Chief Operating Officer for the Bills, said the team is not commenting as negotiations continue.
The tentative stadium agreement includes $850 million of public money to go toward the construction of the new stadium. Money that several organizations and agencies would like to see put back into the Western New York Community.
"There is an historic level of public investment going into this deal," says Franchelle Parker, the Executive Director of Open Buffalo. "It wasn't a donation. We are expecting a return on investment."
Open Buffalo is a a racial economic and ecological justice organization and is one of the more than fifty local partners involved in the Play Fair CBA Coalition.
The Play Fair group recently signed a community letter sent the Bills and Pegula Sports and Entertainmentasking for the CBA to reinvest in all Western New York communities.
Among the things that the Play Fair CBA Coalition is asking for are:
- $500 Million over the course of 30 years to be disbursed annually into community grants for Youth Mentoring, Health Equity, Affordable Housing and Student Athletics
- CBA Community Governance with an advisory board to oversee financial decisions on grants
- A public transportation plan so that all Western New Yorkers can access the stadium
- A focus on including underserved communities in construction and future employment
"We are one of the most impoverished cities of our size in the nation," says Parker. "We have to go about negotiating deals like this in a non traditional way. I know there have been agreements all across the nation that might look different, but taking the Bills Mafia flag, we have to take care of our family, and all of us are our family."
Parker says the Play Fair CBA Coalition is expected to make a public announcement on their plan later this week.
Meantime, Ganis says that he wouldn't be surprised if another deadline extension was necessary, but that time is of the essence.
"They want to start construction in the spring, in earnest. There is a lot of work to be done between now and then and the starting gun is when the deal is completed," said Ganis.
The NFL holds it's fall league meeting next week in New York starting on October 18th. Ganis doesn't believe it's a coincidence that the extended deal deadline was set to expire days before.
"I don't think the 16th was chosen at random."
