One of the underlying assertions behind the Buffalo Bills owners’ demand for a new stadium is that the old one is falling down. Literally: We’ve seen team VP Ron Raccuia declare that the upper deck “will fail in plus-or-minus 5 years,” whatever that means (could it fail by 2016?), as well as claims that an “independent engineering study” shows the upper deck would “have to be replaced” at a cost of $500 million, with a full renovation costing $1 billion. At a price tag like that, spending $1.4 billion on a new stadium starts to sound, if not reasonable, at least less crazy.
Of course, plenty of team owners have claimed their old buildings were falling down to try to get new ones, so I filed a Freedom of Information Law request last week for the report, which was conducted by the engineering firm DiDonato for the Erie County Department of Public Works. And to my surprise, given that FOIL requests often take months to process, I got a response back yesterday morning, just eight days later, with this bombshell information:
Okay, that’s maybe not so much “information” as the lack thereof. What gives, Erie County FOIL Officer? The cover letter on the FOIL response stated:
1. As a critical piece of infrastructure, under the category of Commercial Facilities Sector, releasing details about the structure could endanger the life or safety of any person who enters the stadium.
2. Erie County is currently in ongoing negotiations with New York State and the Buffalo Bills regarding the future of the football team in Erie County. Therefore, releasing the entire study would most certainly impair an imminent contract award.
3. Finally, as you can see, the study is a Draft and subject to change. Therefore, it is a communication between Erie County and a consultant and therefore subject to the inter/intra-agency exception.
Okay, so revealing how much it would cost to maintain and repair the Bills’ current stadium, and how that cost was calculated, would “endanger the life or safety” of football fans, because … yeah, I got nothing. Nor can I begin to guess how making public the cost estimates would “impair an imminent contract award” for a new stadium, except inasmuch as if the costs don’t turn out to be as high as Bills execs are claiming, it could cause a public outcry about handing over hundreds of millions of dollars to the team owners for a new one — but that’s the kind of “impairment” that open access to public records is supposed to result in. “We can’t tell you, because we don’t want fans to know whether concrete might fall on them or whether building a $1.4 billion new stadium is really necessary” is maybe not the pinnacle of transparent government.
The full redacted study — which only includes 12 pages out of a 182-page report, and much of those are blacked out — can be found here, for anyone curious about what information Erie County decided to allow out into the world. We do learn that $250 million has been spent over the years on upgrades to the stadium (most significantly $130 million in 2013 on “new video displays, additional concessions stands and restrooms and various elements to improve circulation and provide ADA access in and around the facility”), and that “the Stadium currently remains in overall fair to good condition with some elements in fair condition” — followed immediately by a redaction, so there’s no way to tell which elements are in only “fair” shape, or what “fair” means in this case. Erie County could tell you, but they don’t want to endanger your life and safety — do you have any idea how many people trip and fall each year on stray commas? You’ll thank them for it later.
Telling me things would endanger my health and safety? Wait, what!!??
On one hand the building is about to fall down, and on the other hand they just fixed up the bathrooms, and put in new scoreboards???
Perhaps the consultant wants to be involved in constructing the new stadium, I see from their website they’ve done sports-related work. Lots of time consultants looking for more work will tell the customer what they have now is obsolete, needs to be replaced, and guess who can help them with that?
Exactly, Tom. If any of this is true, then the consultants who worked on the most recent renovations need to be in court for endangering the public through gross negligence.
Alternately, perhaps it is the officials now claiming the facility is unsafe who should be the target of civil action by the engineering and construction firms who worked on the last renovation. Seems like they are being professionally maligned here.
Fortunately, we don’t actually need to see any documentation regarding the “imminent collapse/fall/failure” of the upper deck or any part thereof to know just exactly how imminent it is.
If there were ANY indication that the facility was or was likely to become structurally unsound in the foreseeable future the public would not be allowed through the turnstiles/gates. Even if complete failure was not envisioned and only limited risk existed, the relevant authorities could and almost certainly would bar public use of the facility.
https://vindyarchives.com/news/2004/jul/28/wrigley-field-cubs-must-install-netting-to-hold/
https://www.sportsnet.ca/more/olympic-stadium-concrete-slab/
Certainly new stadium boosters can say that “in their opinion” the upper deck could collapse at any moment. They could also say that the imminent arrival of hostile aliens wielding death rays make continuing to use the stadium unwise, or that the stadium has become infested with murder hornets and extremely aggressive spiders that have developed a taste for human blood.
It doesn’t have to be true or even plausible for someone to invoke such a claim for political ends or financial gain.
John, don’t give them ideas! I now fully expect to hear the “hostile alien” argument being used for a new stadium.