Thanks to $89.22 million from the American Rescue Plan, Erie County will receive more discretionary aid this year than it has in decades. County Executive Mark Poloncarz intends to spend millions on parks, building improvements, roads, sewers and salaries.
But none of the money would go toward a stadium for the Buffalo Bills.
And a new convention center isn't on his list, either.
Poloncarz spelled out his priorities for the federal American Rescue Plan dollars – plus $34.47 million more in state money – in his Reinvest in Erie's Neighborhoods and Employ our Workforce plan, or RENEW.
"I had some people ask me, when they heard I was doing this plan, they're like, 'Oh, you're going to put this money toward a football stadium?' And the answer was, 'Hell no, that would be a waste of this money,' " Poloncarz said in a meeting with The Buffalo News.
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Before the coronavirus health crisis, anyone plugged into county government would have named the Bills stadium, a new convention center and a new countywide broadband network as the county priorities costing the most and needing financial aid from higher levels of government.
But none of them made the cut in the RENEW Plan, which lays out priorities for spending the $123.7 million.
"This is going to be an amount of investment in the county that we have not seen in such a short period of time since I've been in county government, and as long as I can remember," Poloncarz said. "We're going to invest it wisely."
'Not some mass project'
Poloncarz has pegged the cost of a new Bills stadium at more than $1 billion.
The 10-year lease agreement between the state, the county and the Bills on the current stadium expires in 2023. There is no new agreement yet on a Bills stadium lease.
Representatives met Tuesday at Highmark Stadium to begin the process of planning discussions about the future of stadiums and arenas in WNY.
A football stadium gets used 10 times a year, he said. He compared that to the $14 million investment he plans in county parks, which get used daily.
"I looked at it that way, and that's what I see other communities are doing as well," he said. "They're looking at these projects that can put people to work for construction, as well as strategic investments in the communities that, in truth, need a little help, but not some mass project, or five or six just big projects, and then the money's blown."
Reassessing conventions
Poloncarz once planned to lobby the state for assistance in building a new convention center. One month before the pandemic, architects hired by Erie County recommended building a new and bigger $441.7 million convention center on Delaware Avenue.
But that notion got shelved by the Covid-19 pandemic. Not only did tourism-related business plummet, but the state was in fiscal distress, so he dropped the idea of pushing for a new convention center.
The concept of a new convention center and where it might be located needs to be reassessed, Poloncarz said.
So does the status of the convention business, he added.
"Right now, there's no place for a major convention hotel," he noted, pointing out that the current connecting Hyatt Hotel is closed and the Statler is being converted to apartments.
Architects hired by Erie County to help select a site for a new Buffalo Niagara Convention Center have zeroed in on a block of Delaware Avenue just north of Statler City. The proposal would come with a big price tag: $441.7
The money from the current federal stimulus round wouldn't be enough to cover new convention center costs, Poloncarz said. If the federal government comes through with an infrastructure spending plan for counties and states that can be put toward future projects, a new convention center might be a better target for that money, he added.
Instead of committing current federal money toward a new convention center, the county intends to spend more on the existing Buffalo Niagara Convention Center. Renovations have been underway on a new lobby.
Under the RENEW Plan, the county administration proposes spending $4.5 million in American Rescue Plan dollars for further improvements to the existing convention center's exterior so that it won't continue to look like a concrete bunker.
The new money would go toward adding steel plating to the exterior facade.
"It's exactly what Memphis is doing with its convention center," Poloncarz said. "They had an even uglier convention center than ours."
The new facade will be designed to be more attractive and welcoming to prospective future clients.
"We've put a lot of decent, strategic investments inside, so our goal is, this is going to help us attract business in the next five to six years," Poloncarz said. "Even if we were to build a new convention center and decide on it today, which I don't have the money for, it's going to take years down the line to construct it."
The White House last week introduced an interactive map of the nation's broadband dead zones, and it is enough to make a lot of Western New Yorkers see red.
Next round for broadband
While other local governments look to spend American Rescue Plan dollars to expand high-speed internet access, Erie County does not plan on using this year's federal money for that purpose. The county previously agreed to earmark local dollars for a design study for a countywide high-speed internet backbone called ErieNet.
The county recently contracted with ECC Technologies, based in Rochester, to design the new countywide network, Poloncarz said. The design study won't be completed until next year. By that time, the county expects to receive another $89 million in federal stimulus dollars – the second half of the county's anticipated stimulus funds.
Of that expected amount next year, Poloncarz said he intends to earmark $20 million to $25 million toward the cost of building the 360-mile long fiber-optic network.
