Properties near new Bills stadium skyrocketing to be worth millions

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (WIVB) — Mark Lester and his family have owned the over 1,300 square foot home and subsequent six parcel 5.63 acre lot on Big Tree Road for three generations. Now after all that time he has put it on the market for $3.5 million.

“I was astounded about how much my properties were actually worth. That combined with a multi-million-dollar sale across the street of Bryan Barkos property, which was purchased by the Buffalo Bills for, I believe, $2 million. So, I started to think, what do I have here, and it’s actually quite special,” said Lester.

Bills home games bring in a ton of revenue to residents like Lester, who turns his front lawn and other vacant lots into parking areas, an effort he’s overseen for the past decade. So what spurred him to sell now?

“Simply because of the rezoning that the town of Orchard Park is going to put into place. I am one of the largest property owners that has just vacant land. There’s potential here to do something unique, even without any rezoning,” continued Lester.

In February the Orchard Park town board proposed several changes to the town code, including one that would require a permit for private lots around the stadium.

“Given the proximity to the new stadium, the potential for new commercial development, new multifamily residential development that these parcels have, the sky’s the limit a lot of ways. We priced it appropriately for that potential future income producing opportunity,” added Verax real estate broker Jon Pierowicz.

The property is split into six parcels, some are cleared while others are wooded. Since being listed the property has received a lot of interest, even from outside western New York.

“There’re very few places where you can have a state-of-the-art stadium and 5.6 parcels to develop. I mean, that’s a very exciting opportunity. I mean, the wonderful thing about this property is, you buy it, it’s turnkey, it’s producing revenue while you take your time, do your due diligence in order to get your commercial and residential development ducks in a row,” concluded Pierowicz.

Dillon Morello is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has been part of the News 4 team since September of 2023. See more of his work here and follow him on Twitter.