Okay, the Pegulas'.Originally Posted by Dude
Okay, the Pegulas'.
I think the state study that was released last week indicated the highest estimate for infrastructure, mostly roadwork, was somewhere in the $212mil range, and pushed the expected total costs up to a little under a billion total. I don't remember which specific site downtown it was, though.
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BillsImpossible (01-31-2015)
Sure this has been talked about, but too lazy to go searching. Why not Batavia, or somewhere else thereabouts? As someone who grew up in Rochester, I never understood why the stadium was significantly south of Buffalo, when the team's easily second largest fanbase is to the east. In terms of size of economy and population of the metro area, Buffalo and Rochester are nearly identical. Never understood why there's never been much discussion about moving the stadium somewhere in between the two cities. The logic of maintaining a fanbase in Rochester is no-brainer. If you can move the stadium to a place where Buffalo residents don't have to travel further than they do already, but Rochester residents have a much shorter trip than they do currently, wouldn't that be optimal?
To be fair, I haven't lived in Western New York in over a decade and I'm not as familiar with the immediate situation.
If you never understood the above, you probably never understood why the ferry to Toronto from Rochester did not work. No one from Toronto was interested in visiting Rochester.
By wealth, the Bills second largest fanbase is Southwestern Ontario (including Toronto) rather than Rochester.
The ferry didn't work cause it was an awful idea, and yeah, there's no good reason for visiting besides the grocery store. Note the not having lived there for a decade. I don't even visit. I live in Seattle. I know what a thriving city that people want to go to looks like. We're not talking about visiting Rochester, though. We're talking about people from Rochester going to Bills games, so I don't really get your point. I'm not talking about putting a stadium in Rochester, just getting it closer without moving it further away from Buffalo than it is already.
And I looked up GDP for both metro areas. From the most recent data I could find, from 2011, you're incorrect. In fact the Rochester metro area's GDP is larger than the Buffalo metro:
Buffalo 2011 data: $45.88 billion with a pop of 1,134,210 http://topmetroarea.com/metroarea/46...%20Falls,%20NY
Rochester 2011 data: $46.35 billion with a pop of 1,082,284 http://topmetroarea.com/metroarea/49...ochester,%20NY
On top of that I think the Toronto Series showed just how much southern Ontario cares about Buffalo Bills football as a whole. Rochester has had a large, loyal Bills fanbase for years. If you want to maximise the team's survival long term, one would think you would want to maximise it's regional appeal. Keeping the stadium closer to Ohio and Pennsylvania than anywhere else doesn't do much for that regional appeal.
Buckets (02-01-2015)
15-20% of current Bills season ticket holders are Canadian.
My point was that it may not be wise to move the stadium any further away from them.
This is one of the stupidest posts I have ever seen.
There is only one thing worse than building a cheap ass stadium in the middle of the snow belt in 1973.
And that is building another one in 2000whatever in Orchard park, the middle of the snow belt. This is exactly the same 'head-up-the-ass' thinking that got us the worst stadium in the league 42 years ago.
I am not sure if there have been more bad threads from one poster on any bulletin board in the world.
And aren't something like 30+% from Rochester? Moving the stadium in the direction of Batavia would have little to no negative impact on the travel time from most areas in Buffalo or Southern Ontario and a significant positive impact on travel time from the Rochester area.
How is 30 minutes east of Buffalo that much harder to reach for Canadians than 20 minutes south of Buffalo?
This is like asking why we couldn't have found a way to keep the Braves here.
It's pointless. It's not going to happen.
Even the Orchard Park idea is burnt toast.
The stadium is going downtown. All of this nonsense is just smoke and mirrors.
It's a done deal and it has been for quite a while.
Or just spell it the right way....
BillsImpossible (02-01-2015),Dr. Lecter (02-01-2015)
Orchard Park may be the 'middle of the snow belt' for Erie County, but they still get a pansy-ass amount of snow compared to other areas of WNY. I agree with the rest, though.
It's about as done a deal as a new Peace Bridge.
Did you see the front page of the Buffalo News this morning?
http://www.buffalonews.com/city-regi...adium-20150131
Economists such as Winfree almost unanimously cite evidence showing that new stadiums don’t spur a lot of spinoff economic benefit. Instead, they reshuffle money that’s already being spent in the community while simultaneously boosting profits for NFL teams.
Acknowledging that reality, Poloncarz said: “There are those who say there’s tremendous economic benefit and development that results from a new stadium, but I don’t see it unless it’s somehow combined with a convention center. There really is no economic spinoff that results if it’s just a stadium. That’s been proven again and again.”
---------
He (Higgins) noted, though, that the results would have been more positive if voters had been asked if they would be willing to pay for infrastructure, such as road improvements and new highway ramps to serve the new stadium, rather than the stadium itself.
The public share of stadium costs increasingly goes toward those sorts of infrastructure improvements rather than to stadium construction, but Higgins said voters may not recognize that fact.
One thing that I think we can all agree upon is that if the Pegulas do decide to build a new stadium downtown, they're not going to build the stadium first and then worry about building new roads and bridges after the project is completed.
That would be putting the cart in front of the horse.
So the question is how much of the total cost to build a new stadium downtown will be attributed to new ramps, widening roads, and building/repairing bridges?
How much is that going to cost the average taxpayer in WNY? Once taxes go up, they never go down.
In order to build a new stadium downtown, the road infrastructure improvements must be done first.
Getting that accomplished within the next 6 years will be more difficult than building the stadium itself.
Last edited by BillsImpossible; 02-01-2015 at 10:19 AM.
You really don't get it.
It doesn't make a dime's worth of difference what any economist thinks. It doesn't matter if there's negative economic impact on the region.
It's about economic impact for contractors and for corrupt politicians like Sheldon Silver. But it's for those who haven't been caught yet.
And more importantly than that, it's already been decided. Not like the Peace Bridge, like Rich Stadium, which was only built in Orchard Park because a notable Buffalo city politician wanted a bribe of $1 MIL in cash to build it downtown, and that type of money could not be hidden in those days, so they told him to piss off and moved it to the suburbs.
This time, the right palms have been greased. Face it. It's inevitable. It's done. It's happening.
You can piss and whine all you want to, but you're wasting your time.
That's your opinion, but I respectfully disagree.
The worst stadium in the league?
Who are you, Roger Goodell?
Calling Ralph Wilson Stadium the worst stadium in the league is asinine.
Compare the brand new Levi's Stadium to Ralph Wilson Stadium.
http://www.mercurynews.com/southbayf...ying-catch-all
49ers new stadium: No kegs, playing catch -- all the things you can't do
The following acts are prohibited for fans inside and outside the stadium
No throwing objects -- liquid or solid, including footballs -- or causing anything to "become airborne"
I hope the right palms have been greased, but I see no action yet.
I hope it's a done deal, but until we actually see construction movement on the ground with heavy equipment bulldozing houses and paving new roads it's not a done deal.
Personally, I want a new stadium downtown too. I just don't have faith in the city leaders to get the job done based on the past 50 years of how things don't get done in the city of Buffalo because everyone wants their palms greased with cash money.
Bribery is not a good business model to follow.
nicely said couldn't have said it better myself!
WagonCircler (02-01-2015)
RWS is actually a great stadium for watching football, even though some (many?) of the amenities aren't up to scale with some of the newer builds. I hope the new one can replicate the seating/viewing aspects.
BillsImpossible (02-01-2015)
Also, not all of the palms have been greased...there are some very interested people (*cough* Paladino *cough*) that are going to want to make a lot of money selling the properties that are going to be involved.
BillsImpossible (02-01-2015)
Thank you, YardRat.
There are simply too many payoffs involved. Too many hands to grease, and when you grease someone's hand you compromise yourself.
I wouldn't risk my fortune to some politician or landowner that wants an under the table payment that could get me in serious trouble with the law.
A lot of buildings will have to be demolished, and I'm sure preservationists will intervene quicker than a bird flying in to a bridge.
If the Pegulas can build a stadium in downtown Buffalo, it will be a miracle come true.
Meanwhile, the tallest building in Buffalo once known as HSBC Tower sits empty.
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