BRIAN MAUGHAN:  This is BUILT, the podcast where you’ll meet creative leaders in the commercial real estate industry and hear how they do what they do.

I’m your host Brian Maughan, Chief Innovation and Marketing Officer with Fidelity National Financial. In our fifth season of BUILT, we’re taking a closer look at the places we gather. From museums, to theaters to stadiums, we’re interested in the spaces that bring us together, and the people who work in them.  

This episode, we’re featuring the Buffalo Bills’ New Highmark Stadium that is currently under construction, scheduled to open to the public in fall 2026. I spoke to two key players at Buffalo Bills headquarters about the process. They video conferenced me into their official Bills TV studio which had huge Bill’s logos displayed on the tv screens behind them. It was incredible.

But, how about I let them introduce themselves.

Terry: My name is Terry Gilbride, and I am a Senior Vice President and the Chief Legal Officer here at the Bills. I'm a relatively new addition to the team. I recently came on board uh, in December, to join the team and to work on the stadium project.

Prior to that, I'd spent 35 years in private practice at a large law firm and I was a senior partner there and my practice was focused on commercial real estate projects.

Brian: Thanks, Terry. Frank, would you do the same thing?

Frank: Sure, Frank Cravotta, Senior Vice President of Design with the Buffalo Bills. Unlike Terry, I've been here for a while. Started with the Buffalo Sabres 20 years ago, under a previous ownership group and the Pugolas came in about 12, 13 years ago, and I've been with them ever since their purchase of the Buffalo Bills. And about two and a half years ago, I left my role, leading the creative team to focus solely on the new stadium build.

BRIAN NARRATION: The Pegulas are the husband and wife team who own the Bills. Their names are Terry and Kim.

Ok back to Terry Gilbride – he told us about the first time he watched a Bills game.

Terry: If you're born here, I think you pretty much have to be a Bills fan but, the story is I'm told that it goes back to my, very early, talking stages. This would have been in the early ‘60s, and it was before the Bills started to win AFC Championships. I'm told that uh,the first words that I uttered as a human being were, Shit, fumble! In response to my father watching the football game and I was in the playpen next to the TV set. So I guess it was pretty much preordained that I was going to have to end up working for the team at some point.

Brian: Oh boy, that's great. Today's also a special day for your dad, right?

Terry: Today would have been my dad's 88th birthday. I guess it comes full circle, that I tell that story on, on his birthday. My dad always had season tickets, and I started going to the War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo. I can remember going with my dad to that stadium when I was seven, eight years old. I still remember the first game that I watched played in the stadium in the opening season. So I've been going to Bill's games all my life, have been a Bill's fan all my life. And it's been something in our family.

My wife will tell the story too, that she continued to date me because my family had good Bill seats. She wasn't quite sure if the relationship was going to work out, but she was like, man, it was the fall, it was football season. We had really great Bill's seats.

I'll give it a whirl and see what happens. And that was 35 years ago.

Brian: That's good. Frank, introduce us to your relationship with the Buffalo Bills organization. How did you get started? What's your connection with the organization? You've been there a very long time.

Frank: Well, Buffalo born and bred. I started playing hockey when I was four. So I was all about the Sabres as a young kid. And, uh, went to Syracuse University and during the run in the nineties, that's where I really started to take my Bill's fandom a little bit more seriously.

Unfortunately we didn't win any of those, but it was really good times. I would say being in sports and working for your local teams, it's great, and to have an effect through your job on the fan base is very rewarding. But it also takes the fandom out of it a little bit.

When you're working there day to day, year after year,you don't get as high or as low as maybe the fan does because it's just hard to do. It's hard to keep that intensity up, and do your job well. So, we've seen a lot. We've seen some really great runs with the Sabres. We've seen some amazing runs lately with the Bills. Personally, I think the sky's the limit for both teams.

Brian: That's awesome. That's awesome. Your role with the organization has grown over time. Now being in charge of creative design, kind of walk us through where you started and how that career progressed to where it is now.

Frank: I was an exhibit designer working in Baltimore, Maryland. I had an opportunity to come back and work for the Sabres to help out. The upkeep and some of the enhancements in the building from a 3D perspective.

So clubs, restaurants, we built Sabertooth's house. Things like that, which started very small, right? You have a $50,000 budget to do something, fan focused. And then over a period of time, the creative team grew into all of the aspects.

My background and forte really has always been in the 3D realm. And so one of the first things I did for the Pegulas was to design a new Sabres state of the art locker room. And I remember saying to myself, wow, this is incredible. Like this is the biggest project I've ever done.14 million bucks!

So I was like, holy cow. Few years later, I met Terry.

BRIAN NARRATION: The New Highmark Stadium isn’t the first project that Terry Gilbride and Frank have worked together on. Their work relationship started long ago when Frank collaborated with Terry’s old firm.

Frank: They had the largest private investment in the city of Buffalo at Harbor Center, and that is 150 million plus building and facility again saying to myself, man, I don't know if I'll do anything ever bigger than this and, and so as I grew, into the executive, at PSE, helping form that company and working with the Pegulas.

One of the things that became apparent is the potential for a new stadium. And I had a conversation with Kim and told her if we do a stadium, I would like to solely take that project on and leave my other role. So luckily enough, that's where it ended up. I looked at the budget of the biggest project I did when I was an exhibit designer and the stadium's 2000 times bigger from a budgetary standpoint, which is crazy. Yeah, that's the path very quickly from beginning to end and a lot in between .And a lot of fun, a lot of challenge, but this one is mega. It's a mega project.

BRIAN NARRATION: Both Frank and Terry have a passion for this project and that sense of duty, well it resonates with the entire working community.

Frank: And that's part of the beauty of it is that everyone who we meet who's working on it wants to be part of it. The construction worker wants to get this project,the people putting the concrete in, they want to be here out at the stadium and say they did it, say they built it.There's a tremendous amount of pride.

Brian: Terry, you've been involved in commercial real estate for your career. What was your involvement prior to the stadium that we're going to talk about here in just a minute? What was your involvement with the Buffalo Bills, the ownership family, how have you progressed through these last several decades before you started with the Buffalo Bills and in December?

Terry: When I was a relatively young lawyer, the lease with the Bills came up for renewal and this was when Ralph Wilson and his organization owned the Bills and the Bills were coming off of the first 25 year lease of the stadium and then they were signing up for a renewal and there was a huge capital project associated with it and this was the first time that the, the state had gotten involved in the project.

Traditionally, in its inception the stadium is owned by the county, leased to the Bills. That was pretty simple. But with the transaction in ‘96, ‘97, ‘98, there was a renewal of the lease but then the state got involved in it because there was an extensive capital renovation of the stadium. It needed to be overhauled and updated and so I represented the county on that transaction.

So that was really my first stadium transaction. I was relatively young and early on in my practice and then fast forward to 2013 and I was brought in to represent the state on another renewal of the lease and another upgrading of the stadium. And so with this project, it's full circle.

I'm now representing the other party in the transaction, the team itself. But through all of that, in addition to doing those sports transactions, I've worked on large, commercial, public private partnership, development projects.

Always multiple players, always some degree of public participation in the project. Always a tight deadline because with college and university projects, you're up against the start of the academic year.

Not dissimilar to what we have here, we're up against a tight deadline. We're going to open in 2026 and we've got a football season to play in the stadium.

Harbor Center was, one Frank referenced, and that was an interesting project because it had a little bit of everything. The project had two ice rinks, but instead of just putting the two ice rinks on the ground, they decided to put them in the air, above a parking garage, above a restaurant, right next to a full service Marriott hotel, and connect it all into, the existing Sabres Arena at KeyBank Center.

It was transformational really because it kicked off the redevelopment of the Buffalo waterfront. Always interesting, complicated  issues that grow out of projects like this.

Brian: What's your favorite part of that commercial real estate problem solving?

Terry: Honestly, when the problem arrives on your desk, I don't know the answer to it. You know, it presents an interesting set of characteristics. You sit down, you get to talk to people, you reason through things and then you figure out the solution. There are two parts about my practice that I like about working in this area. One, is the problem solving. I get paid to solve problems for other people, which is a privilege and honor. It's a challenge. It's exciting.

But the other part of it is to see the finished product, to have a legacy of projects that you've worked on, particularly if you stay in a community like ours. I can take my grandchildren around and I can show them projects that I've worked on and it connects you to the place.

And this to me is the most exciting of all.

BRIAN NARRATION: Before we go into detail about the New Highmark Stadium, we have to talk about the status of the current stadium, where the Bills are still playing.

Frank: Built in 1970. I think it's the oldest stadium without a major renovation. So if you can imagine, what you'd be building in 1970 and even then it was fairly bare bones. So it's serviceable. It's a lot of fun, but it really doesn't fulfill the needs of a modern, NFL stadium. One tunnel, one, access point in and out.

You think modern stadiums, our new stadium will have seven ways to get onto the field. So, technology, fan comfort, revenue, there's a lot of things that, the current stadium just, is lacking. And then there's a structural component that the upper deck, while safe, is nearing the end of its useful life, its concrete deck.

That would be something in any scenario, would need to be removed and replaced if we were just to stay where we're at. So, when we started adding all that up, a major renovation at the current site made no sense at all. Because you were getting to numbers that were almost equal to a newer building, not the building that we're building, which is a little bit more enhanced, a little nicer, but, it's a fun place.

It's a college atmosphere right, with the tailgating, but there's really no place to go to get warm. There's not a lot of amenities that fans are expecting in a modern facility and where I come in, we're very much interested in storytelling.

What does it feel like? What do you learn about? Where's the history of the region and the team within these spaces? We have an art program. We have a lot of things to benefit the community. So it's like night and day. It's going from a Ford Pinto to a Tesla.

It's a great place to watch a football game. It's a great old building but it's the end of its useful life.

Brian: I've always thought that the Buffalo Bills stadium brings a whole new element to the game, right? Whether it's the Bills mafia or the weather or the noise, it's been a great place to watch football.

Frank: Our fans. Make it, what it is. It's incredible.

Terry: It is very much a campus here. It's 200 acres. Our training facility is here, our parking lots are here, and on game day, you'd have to come and experience it to see.

It's a festival atmosphere, and it starts in the parking lot and it spills over into the stadium. People love this team. They love the experience. They're blown away by it.

Frank: There's a lot of talk about staying where we're at. And there's a variety of reasons, that fan experience, that tailgating, the tentacles that reach out into the community surrounding the stadium. That's part of the fabric of what it is. That's what makes it special. And that's not going away.

Brian: Tell me a little bit about that area of the city. What makes it special? Give me some description around the area.

Terry: It's in the town of Orchard Park, which is in the same county as Buffalo. It's a 15 minute drive to downtown Buffalo from where we are but it's the nexus of a number of different transportation routes.

And the property itself is owned by the county and that's one of the principal benefits. It was a large tract of land that was available and it is fairly easy in and out, compared to downtown locations. Any time you take 70, 000 people and you put them in one place for a short period of time and you disperse them at about the same time, it's always a bit of a hassle. Some of the traffic jams that are associated with other cities, we don't have that because it's a location that has fairly, proximate access to several major highways.

Frank:The area around here is mostly residential. There's all these great little villages of Orchard Park and Hamburg and East Aurora and Lancaster. You come here on a summer day and it's a quiet little town on the outskirts of Buffalo. And you come here in the fall,depending on who you are, some start on Friday night, certainly Saturday for a lot of people. Sunday, it's full early and it becomes this mecca for Bills fans. It's incredible.

Terry: Orchard Park also happens to be located smack dab in the middle of what we call the Snow Belt. I would say it's probably about maybe seven, eight miles inland from Lake Erie. And the cold air comes over the lake and the lake's not frozen, picks up moisture and hits the warm land and in about three four miles in, it starts to drop the snow. And so on occasion we have gotten some rather large snowfalls. This year it happened in two successive playoff weekends but it's part of what it is to be a Buffalo Bills fan.

Orchard Park is south of the city and that's referred to generically, the towns that Frank talked to are called the South Towns.

And this is one of the South Towns and they traditionally get whacked with the snow but it's a part of our identity, and I think people embrace it. It's part of what it means to be, in Buffalo, to be a Buffalo Bills player, to be a Buffalo Bills fan. We play in snow, we play outdoors. And, if you can't deal with the snow, this probably isn't the place for you to be honest.

It's just a part of life. And, it's been like that my entire life. Frank's entire life. We just live it. We accept it. It's part of our identity.

BRIAN NARRATION: There were some internal discussions about moving the location of the new stadium entirely, but ultimately the team decided that there isn't a better place than where they already are, so the New Highmark Stadium is being built across the street from the current stadium.

Frank: Once we decided where it was going to be and, we know we have that predominant wind coming off the lake, we've done hundreds of hours and studies to deal with that issue. One of the things that our fans said is that the snow really doesn't bother them. It's the cold, it's the wind, it's the wet, is really tough to deal with.

BRIAN NARRATION: The new design will take the wind into account on the inside. But first, from the outside, the new stadium is designed to stand out. Not only is it meant to catch your attention but it is constructed to keep your attention as well.

Frank: The building is a modern interpretation of classic sports architecture in Buffalo. Memorial Auditorium had these iconic, vertical elements that one of the architects picked up on looking through the history of the rock pile. Picked out some of those cues of these vertical colonnades, picked up on that, and brought it back to ownership. And I would say immediately when Terry saw it and understood why, it looks the way it does, and how that goes to the past,he loved it. Kim loved it.

It was a ton of work to do after the fact, but our building is made of a metal exterior skin. And then at ground level, some really nice brick to kind of bring the warmth of stone and the ode to some of the architecture in the city.

So from afar, it's going to be an imposing, beautiful structure, in my opinion and then the inside really is about football.

This is a football first, we're not going crazy with video screens everywhere. We're spending a lot of time on the verticality of the building, the sound and how the sound echo, when we want it to. And so we took a simplistic approach. The experience is on the field. And that what we're seeing in some other buildings is that the experience could be on the screen above the field.

BRIAN NARRATION: From its conception, the planning of the stadium was always centered around enhancing the fans' football experience. That's why the design team elected to have an innovative open concourse.

Frank: We've moved all of the retail, the food and beverage, the restrooms to the perimeter of the structure. Helps block the wind, honestly, right. So you're moving all that to the outside. And then as our fans are walking around to find their seats within the concourse, that area, towards the bowl is wide open. So you're going to be able to see, hear and feel the energy of the bowl as you're walking around to use the restroom or to get a beer or a hot dog or something like that.

It will bring that connectivity and that passion, the intensity, to life all the time for the majority of our fans.

BRIAN NARRATION: The design team mirrored that intensity in their attention to detail. They combined the technical attributes of the project with the architecture to improve the overall fan experience.

Frank: The facade is a project on its own, made of 12,000 metal panels. So the amount of openings within these panels will either block or let wind through. Once we got through all the science of that, which is fun to be a part of, honestly, you get into the aesthetic and they said, we could have squares or we could have circles or we could do whatever we want.

So the charge, which is the red element in the Bills logo, is the shape that all of the perforations are cut from. If you go up close or if you're in a staircase, you'll be looking at thousands and thousands of Bills charges.There's a lot of that going on but that's one directly related to the facade.

BRIAN NARRATION: From the early stages of development, the Bills have been working with Legends Construction. Populous has aided with the architecture along with Jonathan Malley; and Gilbane Turner is responsible for the construction.

Brian: I wanted to ask about this cantilever roof. Why is it there? What does it do? What are its intended uses?

Frank: It's there to protect our fans, within reason, from the elements, within reason. So if it's snowing sideways, a cantilevered roof doesn't help you a lot. But for a majority of the time, the cantilevered roof will protect about 66 percent of our fans from snow and rain.

In the current stadium, if you get up to the top and that wind that's coming off the lake, you have to be really hardy to make it through.

Terry: Let's just say 60 ish.

Frank: 60 ish.That's good. So the cantilevered roof is an element that helps fan comfort. First and foremost. Aesthetically, it's cool because a building will look like a modern soccer stadium from the inside. All the lighting is hid within the cantilever. All of our audio system and wifi is tucked neatly into that. So it's beautiful too.

BRIAN NARRATION: The open roof, I just love the way it looks. It's going to redirect some of that energy back onto the field. Frank and the rest of the team had some tricks up their sleeve with this design too...

Frank: Yeah, it's a competitive advantage. Absolutely. We call It stack design. So the building doesn't grow outward, the building kind of stacks on top of itself. It's cheaper to build a building that way. Fans are closer to the field. And then when you add the cantilevered roof, that becomes basically an echo chamber when it's third down and my train horn's going and our people are going crazy. Watch out.

Brian: All right, Terry, so tell us a little bit about the public private partnership that surrounds this stadium and this project as a whole.

Terry: This is a huge project. We're a small market NFL city. And it takes the cooperation of both the state government and the county government to try to figure out a path forward that allows for construction of a stadium and for operation of a stadium.

So we have a three way partnership. The county is involved and the state is involved through Empire State Development Corporation, which is their affiliated entity for economic development purposes. And during construction, the land on which the stadium is being constructed right now is owned by Erie County, which is, the county that Buffalo sits in, that Orchard Park sits in.

They're an important partner of the project and currently the entire campus actually is owned by them but when the new stadium is completed, they're going to convey that land over to the state. The affiliate of the state that's going to own the project and then there is a lease back to the Bills for the operation, maintenance, repair of the stadium.

This isn't just a build it and “move on with life" type of project. I mean there are agreements that have a short shelf life that go away when the construction is completed. The partners, the county, the state, and the Bills, we're all party to an agreement called the Community Benefits Agreement. Which kind of sits over the whole project and it's not just during the construction that this agreement is there, but it actually goes on for the 30 year life of the lease of the project and it creates a framework for community input, community oversight and reinvestment into the community.

So it's a multifaceted agreement that I think is a distinguishing feature of this particular project. Most public private partnerships, it's really strictly a financial operation model but this really goes to the relationship of this team to this community.

BRIAN NARRATION: And of course Bills news is big local news. Here’s WKBW TV highlighting the partnership between the state, the Bills, and the community.

Audio Clip -  “The stadium corporation is also reporting significant progress on GilBane Turner meeting diverse hiring goals. The inclusion of minority owned businesses is currently exceeding the goal of 15% while work remains for women and service disabled veteran owned businesses.”

[Play 'Full steam ahead': Erie County Stadium Corporation update on construction of new Highmark Stadium  from 1:14 - 1:29]

Terry: Yeah, it's a football stadium and we're going to play football games there. That part is great, but it is so much bigger than that. And we see that, we accept that, we embrace that, we recognize that's part of what this is supposed to do. And we're seeing really positive results with that.

Brian: What are some of the challenges that this project has come across and had to overcome?

Frank: While, we are obviously bound and committed to the workforce goals. That is a challenge, in a small town, right? The construction initiative and just the sheer volume of what we're doing out here has made it difficult to meet those goals.

So by no means is that an excuse because we are going to hit the goals but that has been one. And then budget is a challenge. We didn't realize the significance of that challenge and we're past the design phase. But every day, every single day, I'm dealing with ways to try to mitigate the budget issue that we have. And you're trying to do that without affecting the football experience for our players.

And then really hard trying to make it so that the fan experience isn't suffered as well. It does weigh on you and we are buffalonians and we care. It's not just another project and so that's part of it as well, we're taking this very personally.

Terry: I want to drill down on a couple of things that Frank said because I do think there, there were some other challenges here too,

The unanticipated one is the labor. This is a big project and this is taxing. The construction industry in this part of the state and so we've had to deal with a whole bunch of issues that I don't think folks were necessarily focused on. It's always a function of whenever you start construction, right?

You don't know what the labor market's going to be like and at this particular time. I think there are some stressors. You know, that's presented some challenges and I think the overall big picture when you sit down with your public sector partners, and you try to figure out a way to come up with a financeable plan, you have to take into account a whole host of factors, and this is a smaller NFL market.

So there aren't quite the revenue generation opportunities that come with the New York's or the Los Angeles's. We don't have two football teams playing games here. Frank said, we're not going to get a Super Bowl here. Those are all challenges that had to be factored into the decision. How this is going to be funded? How this is going to be structured? What are the ongoing operational responsibilities? All that has to be taken into account. Those challenges were identified, met, addressed and we're moving forward.

BRIAN NARRATION: Building a premier football stadium is a complete team effort. There can be blind spots, and therefore collaboration is needed throughout the entire organization.

Frank:  We have certainly had all of the football staff from the general manager to the coach to the trainers to the equipment managers, you name it. They're in, with us and they've been in from day one and they will continue to be. You try to make the football first for any football player or any trainer or things like that. We're trying to accommodate great ideas, but not pigeonhole ourself to something that's so custom that we would be in a little bit of trouble, at a later date.

Brian: What about the fans? What's the general feeling in the community? About the new stadium.

Frank: Overall, I think people knew that we needed a stadium and we're going to build a world class football stadium here.

Terry: Our season tickets sales spiked last year. Folks were looking down the road and they wanted to be in a position to make sure that they had an opportunity to get into the stadium. And there is a ton of excitement. I think there's a lot of fascination with the stadium.

Now you're seeing superstructure go up, you're seeing steel being hung, you're seeing concrete being poured. It's starting to look like a stadium and I think the excitement is getting there.

Frank: And the sheer magnitude of the facility is really hard to convey, even for myself, working on it from the beginning. Until the steel actually gets up and the building forms itself. There's no way to visualize it, right? It's just, it's too big. And I think that will add a whole nother level to the excitement and to the interest.

BRIAN NARRATION: Throughout my entire conversation with Frank and Terry, their emotional connection to this project was evident. I could tell that it was much much bigger than just a career milestone.

Frank: It is an honor and a privilege, but I also think that if anyone else working on this building across the street who's a Buffalonian would probably say the same thing. This is a community. There's a level of pride that everyone feels and to be part of it and to be right on the inside.

It's beautiful to be able to think something up, visualize it, draw it, concept it  and then someday go in with my daughter who's eight now and she'll be 10 when it opens to be able to tell her how that came together. That's my personal connection through my family and my young daughter is that dad can think things up and then poof, here they are. It's pretty cool.

Terry: For me, I think it's going to be I'm that nine year old boy that walked into the stadium when it first opened. And  I remember how green the AstroTurf was. It hurt my eyes. It was so green, but I remember that. Going to the game with my dad and I think, when this thing opens and I have that moment, it's going to be pretty special. I'm really looking forward to that. So that's going to be an amazing day.

Brian: Thank you for your time. Thank you for your generosity of sharing with us your thoughts and I'm looking forward to it, for more than one reason. I think you've described a NFL city that is an NFL town and NFL community and a stadium that allows us to have state of the art, but keep it right in the front yard.

And I love that. I love that concept. I love what you have done. I love that you're a part of it. And I appreciate you taking the time to share that with us here.

Frank: Yeah, thank you.

Terry: It's a privilege to speak to you.

BRIAN NARRATION: Thanks for tuning into Season Five of Built! We’ve had a wonderful time this season highlighting places that bring people together. We even visited another home for football, the Atlanta Falcons’ Mercedes Benz stadium. Check out that episode to hear what it’s like to build a LEED-certified stadium in the south, far, far away from the snow.

BRIAN NARRATION: And if you missed an episode from our previous seasons, go listen! You can find all Built episodes wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like the show, please give us a rating or review on whichever podcast platform you use.

Built is a co-production of Fidelity National Financial and PRX Productions. From FNF, our project is run by Annie Bardelas. This episode of Built was produced by Emmanuel Desarme. Our Senior Producer and editor is Genevieve Sponsler. Audio mastering by Rebecca Seidel.

The Executive Producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.

I’m Brian Maughan.

And remember, every story is unique, every property is individual, but we’re all part of this BUILT world.