What’s ‘home of the Bills’ worth to Orchard Park?

For Orchard Park, home of the Buffalo Bills, it has been priceless.

“Nationwide, on TV, it says ‘Orchard Park, N.Y.,’ ” Orchard Park Supervisor Patrick Keem said.

“We are on the map as the home of Buffalo Bills,” added Nancy Conley, executive director of the Orchard Park Chamber of Commerce.

The cost for a 30-second commercial during a football game can run as high as $600,000, according to the entertainment trade magazine, Variety. There’s no room in the town’s $15 million general fund budget for something like that.

So if a new Bills stadium is built in downtown Buffalo, as a new consultant’s report seems to recommend, many in Orchard Park fear the community of 29,000 will lose its identity.

The town’s population has climbed by 10,000 since 1970, three years before Rich Stadium opened. Some of those residents include players, coaches and staff of the Bills.

It’s hard to quantify the cachet of seeing the star quarterback sitting in the next pew at church on Sunday, or of the coach eating lunch across the room in a local restaurant.

On game days, roads near the stadium have a steady stream of cars. Bars, restaurants and stores are packed. So are parking lots and yards, where property owners make the best of the congestion and make money parking cars.

Dan Prenoveau, who runs Danny’s Restaurant at Big Tree and Abbott roads, said he always asks customers who want to come in for Sunday brunch if they are going to the game.

“Unless you’re going to the game, you shouldn’t be around the area,” he said.

Danny’s, like the Big Tree Inn across the road, caters to Bills fans. Some RVs park in his lot overnight until they can get into the RV lot at the stadium. Once there, many come to the restaurant for brunch.

“Eight games a year, it’s very, very busy,” he said.

And the rest of the year, Danny’s attracts customers with its sports bar and Bills memorabilia.

“A lot of people come in to the restaurant knowing we are near the stadium,” Prenoveau said.

If the NFL and Terry and Kim Pegula, the new owners of the Bills, deem that a new stadium for the Bills is warranted, the town supervisor says it makes sense to build it in Orchard Park, as the county already owns 220 acres in the vicinity. Other options leave Orchard Park residents nervous.

“Yeah, relocate it right in Orchard Park, right across the street or on the same property. Build a new stadium there and then fill this one in and use it for parking. That’s what some cities have done, I’ve heard,” Keem said.

“All the infrastructure is here. The field house is here, the administrative building,” he added, noting the recent $130 million investment in the facility.

“It would be advantageous to keep it on that site. People that come to the games are used to the traffic patterns,” Keem said.

County Legislature Chairman John J. Mills, a Republican who lives in and represents Orchard Park, said relocating to a downtown site might be cost prohibitive.

“First of all, can we afford the infrastructure to put it downtown, and what are we going to do with the stadium we have?” Mills asked.

But what if the football team does move out of Orchard Park?

“In the big picture, it would be devastating to lose the stadium in Orchard Park,” said Conley, from the Chamber of Commerce.

“It would be bad initially,” Prenoveau said. “It would hurt the area.”

Since Danny’s operates year round, not just eight or nine days of the year, it would not hurt to the point the restaurant would have to move, he said.

But Danny’s would not be the same.

“We would kind of lose a little of our identity,” Prenoveau said.

“They’re just a tremendous asset to the community,” Conley said of the team.

If the stadium moved elsewhere, some Orchard Park businesses would suffer, but town coffers should collect the same amount of sales tax should the Bills stay in Erie County. That’s because sales tax payments to towns are based on population and assessed valuation, not the sales that take place in the particular town.

Although town taxpayers foot the bill for overtime for their police on game days, many residents can’t envision the stadium any place else besides Southwestern Boulevard and Abbott Road.

“There’s very few places that I’m aware of that have the current infrastructure to support it,” Orchard Park Police Chief Mark Pacholec said. “We’ve got 219, 90 right around the corner, in Hamburg off Milestrip. We’ve got 20, 20A, Abbott Road. We’ve got five major highways coming in and out.”

He and others in Orchard Park say a new stadium could be built on county land next to the existing stadium.

“Could it be here? Sure it could,” Pacholec said.

He said the Police Department incurs $35,000 to $40,000 a year in overtime for officers to work football games. Other events like concerts cost additional in overtime, and there is an increase in call volume on game days.

“That is an issue,” he said.

Also, only one officer can have the day off on game days, he said.

“That includes me, I work every game,” he said. “Most of our department is working on any game day.”

The county last year started making Route 20A one way after games, and that clears the traffic out 40 to 45 minutes faster, and shutting down Abbott Road on game days is much safer for pedestrians, he said.

The Bills organization is good to work with, he said, and the information flow between the director of security and vice presidents is “outstanding.”

“Having it there, it works,” he said.

As the nation’s television football fans see a glorious blue sky on a clear October day, or snow falling on a stormy December one, they hear sportscasters announcing the location: Orchard Park. And town leaders want to keep it that way.

“We’re identified with the football team, we’re kind of synonymous after 40 years,” Keem said. “We’re proud of that, we’re proud to host them.”

Harold McNeil contributed to this story. email: bobrien@buffnews.com