ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — The Buffalo Bills on Friday held a topping-out ceremony to mark the lifting and placing of the last major roof module for the new, $2.1 billion Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park.
The project is about halfway done and is slated to be completed prior to the 2026 NFL season, the office of Gov. Kathy Hochul said in the Friday announcement.
The stadium design includes technology, art, and an array of amenities designed to “enhance the customer experience,” the governor’s office noted, describing it as a “world-class entertainment venue that will boost the economy of Western New York for decades to come.”
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“Today is about you hard workers,” Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pegula said in the state’s announcement. “We’re going to put this piece of steel up. We’re calling this the topping-off ceremony. I call it the first piece of building the rest of the stadium.”
With more than 1,400 guests and hundreds of members of organized labor in attendance, one of the super cranes on site was used to put up the highest beam 156 feet in the air. The final beam was adorned with an American flag and an evergreen tree. It bears the signature of hundreds of partners, employees, and stakeholders who are contributing to the development of the new stadium.
Friday’s event comes just 20 months after the groundbreaking for the new 60,000-seat stadium, which the Bills designed in conjunction with planning and project management firm Legends and the architectural firm Populous. To date, the construction team has put in place more than 22,000 individual pieces of steel weighing more than 25,000 tons, Hochul’s office said.
The scope of work necessitated the participation of 16 fabrication companies, with 60 percent of the steel being produced in New York state and almost all of it produced in the U.S., the governor’s office noted.
In addition to the structural steel work, the project has included the removal of 742,000 cubic yards of dirt and the installation of more than 46,000 cubic yards of foundation concrete, and miles of piping among other materials. As many as 1,500 workers will be on the site at the peak of construction — including people working on masonry, electrical and plumbing. Workers have already contributed over 1.7 million craft-hours to construction, with that number expected to double by completion.
The future home of the Buffalo Bills will also host a variety of other sporting and non-sporting events.
