Locals getting most of Bills stadium work

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Bills stadium under construction. Photo by Garrett Looker.

Companies and workers local to Western New York have so far done the majority of the work on the new Buffalo Bills stadium.

A significant portion of the $1.2 billion in contracts has also gone to out of town concerns. Team and state officials have refused to release much detail about who is getting the work.

Investigative Post, however, has used the limited data officials have provided to calculate where the money is flowing.

Our analysis found:

• Fifty-five firms based in the eight counties of Western New York account for 59 percent of the companies that have had workers on site as of September. Fifteen of the local companies are headquartered in the City of Buffalo.
• Eighty percent of the 2,142 workers they’ve employed as of mid-September hail from Western New York. 
• Half of the contracts awarded to companies owned by minorities and women have gone to firms outside the region or state.

Paul Brown, president of the Buffalo Building Trades and the Niagara Building Trades Council, said while he’s grateful local workers are building the stadium and earning good pay — the average wage so far is $45 per hour — he wishes more contracts had gone to local firms. Worker pay — totaling $40.5 million as of mid-September — represents a fraction of the $1.2 billion in spending so far.

“It’s a constant fight to have them use local people,” said Brown, who was among the local labor leaders who negotiated the stadium’s project labor agreement.

While the data is limited, it offers a never-before-seen glimpse into the region’s largest construction project and who is receiving the work associated with it. Erie County officials told Investigative Post that a full accounting of where the stadium’s $2.1 billion is spent will be completed after the stadium is open.

Investigative Post also learned about the composition of the workers  deployed at the stadium:

• 94 percent are men; 6 percent are women.
• 71 percent are white; 11 percent Black; 5.5 percent Native American; and 5 percent Hispanic. 

A spokesperson for the Bills declined to comment for this story and referred Investigative Post to Empire State Development Corp. Spokespeople for that agency refused to return phone calls and emails seeking comment.

Assembling stadium data proves difficult

In announcing the stadium project, Gov. Kathy Hochul pitched it as a boon for “regional economic development” with a priority on “the employment of local workers and businesses.” The state is providing $600 million toward the construction, the county $250 million. 

However, neither the Bills nor construction manager Gilbane-Turner nor any of the prime contractors are legally required to hire local companies or local workers. The firms awarding contracts are also not required to hire lowest responsible bidders, as governments are. County spokesperson Daniel Meyer said the county has let the Bills know they prefer the hiring of local companies.

“The Bills stadium is not being constructed under General Municipal Law,” Erie County Attorney Jeremy Toth explained in an email. “Fundamentally, the county does not award the contract, Gilbane-Turner does. We monitor and chime in when necessary.”

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said it’s not surprising that some contracts and jobs have gone to out-of-towners.

“The way that local works is, it's not just Western New York. It can't be limited to Western New York. It’s all of New York State, too,” he said.

The Bills to date have exceeded contracting goals for minority-owned firms and fallen just shy of the goals for companies owned by women and disabled veterans.

“The numbers are actually really good,” Poloncarz said.

Still, Empire State Development and Erie County say it’s not possible for them to produce a full accounting of which companies have been awarded contracts and where those companies are from. 

“ESD does not maintain ‘a list or database of all companies hired to work on the new Buffalo Bills stadium’ that would allow for practical retrieval of the information you are seeking,” ESD attorney Jillian Diaz Cringle wrote to Investigative Post last week.

Attorney Paul Wolf, president of the New York Coalition for Open Government, doesn’t buy ESD’s explanation.

“If they have the data, they should provide it,” he said. “They must clearly have it. It shouldn't be that difficult to retrieve it and provide it to you.”

Investigative Post filed a Freedom of Information Law request in May for a list of all stadium contractors. In August, the agency instead released a limited list of contractors, namely those hired as women- and minority-owned businesses. Those firms, per the community benefits agreement, are supposed to account for about one-third of the overall stadium work.

While identifying more than 150 companies in this category by name, ESD said it was unable to provide their addresses because of technical limitations. Investigative Post was able to identify the location of the companies through their filings with the New York Secretary of State. The Buffalo News has since reported the number of women- and minority-owned firms totals 322.

Investigative Post subsequently requested contractor information from Erie County. Officials initially said they couldn’t provide it, but later agreed to release data on the stadium’s workforce, which included some details about the companies that hired those workers.

That data, too, offers only a limited view of who is building the new stadium. Missing, for example, is the value of contracts awarded to individual companies.

How the project has proceeded

Stadium construction began in June 2023, across the street from the existing Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park. It is scheduled for completion in time for the Bills’ 2026 season. 

The stadium is being built using a blend of government and private-sector practices and policies. It's contracting process has proven complicated.

The Buffalo Bills, acting as the project’s developer, hired Gilbane Building Co., Turner Construction Co. and the 34 Group, owned by former Bills player Thurman Thomas, as construction managers. The Gilbane-Turner management team, in association with Thomas’ company, then hired 37 prime contractors, many of whom in turn subcontracted with other firms.

The contractors must follow some goals and requirements set by the state and county. For example, a little more than one-third of the work must be done by firms owned by women, minorities or service-disabled veterans. A project labor agreement, mandating contractors pay prevailing wages to workers, is also in place. It further requires the hiring of union apprentices. 

As of mid-September, the Bills had awarded $1.2 billion in contracts. As of mid-November, an unspecified number of contractors have been paid $667 million. 

Some of the largest contractors are from out of town. State business records show Gilbane Building Co. is headquartered in Rhode Island and Turner Construction Co. is based out of New York City, though both firms have local offices.

Among other prime contractors: 

• Populous Architects, which designed the stadium, is based in Kansas City, MO.
• Legends Hospitality, which is selling personal seat licenses and in line to be the stadium’s concessionaire, is based in New York City.
• Fenagh Engineering and Testing is based in Redwood City, CA.
• LaBella Associates, an engineering firm, is based in Rochester.

Among the 10 firms hiring the most workers, representing about half of the workforce, six are from Western New York while the other four are from Binghamton, Ohio and New Jersey. 

Buffalo-based Ferguson Electric, Thurman Thomas’ 34 Group, based in Orchard Park, and West Seneca-based Union Concrete and Construction Corp. are the local firms that have hired the most workers.

Contracts have been awarded for a little bit more than half of the stadium work. It remains to be seen if officials are more forthcoming in the future about who gets the remainder of the work.

“If they have it, if it could be provided without a ton of work, which I can't imagine it is, it should be,” Wolf said.

J. Dale Shoemaker