Orchard Park, N.Y. (WBEN) - As construction continues on the new Highmark Stadium along Abbott Road in the Town of Orchard Park, another wrench has been thrown into rezoning areas near the stadium.
This week's Zoning Board meeting has been postponed, though Orchard Park Town Supervisor Gene Majcharzak says it's not the town's doing. Majchrzak tells WBEN it really had to do with the delivery of materials needed in order to post signage for a certain time frame.
"The material has not delivered yet, and which made us put us in the position where we had to reschedule the public hearing," explained Majchrzak.
This delay should not negatively affect rezoning of properties around the new stadium, according to Majchrzak.
"We're making progress," he said. "We have a request for qualifications (for consultants) to do the comprehensive plan for that particular area. And I believe the town engineer has received one or two of those back in and is reviewing them at this time."
Majchrzak adds there have been conversations with developers and businesses, and the consensus is there will need to be more than 10 football games to make things work.
"What we're hearing is you're going to have to have 100-150 events, and I believe with the kind of money that the taxpayers in the and the bills are spending on that stadium. I'm sure that's in their master plan to kick up the number of events drastically," Majchrzak noted.
Don Lorentz of the Orchard Park Chamber of Commerce believes this is, yet, another delay that should be concerning.
"We've been trying to get the zoning changed, so it's not that it's something new," said Lorentz with WBEN. "But what concerns me now is with the Bills initiating a letter out to try to get the NFL Draft coming here, I just think our town needs to embrace it more."
Lorentz says the Town of Orchard Park needs to have the commitment, showing it can handle that type of audience coming in.
"When you look at the amount of people that came to the last NFL Draft, which was over 700,000 people, I would love for Orchard Park to say we're taking an initiative so that by 2028, [we're ready]" Lorentz added.
One of the big things holding progress up, at this time, is the town has a two-and-a-half story moratorium on building heights. Lorentz says the town is going to have to address, what they call, the Stadium Overlay District sooner rather than later.
"They originally spoke about a one mile radius of the stadium that could allow for more stories than that, whatever it would take for us to get developers in here, to be able to put a hotel and then maybe put up some kind of a shopping center," he said.
Lorentz adds once the rezoning is done, development could happen overnight.
"I'm not looking at that as being a very difficult process. It's just getting everybody together from the town to say, 'We're going to implement this.' I would love for the community to express their concerns one way or the other," Lorentz said.
Majchrzak says the meeting should be rescheduled for the first part of September or October.
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