Signed documents on new Bills stadium agreement may come next week

Of course, their predictions have been wrong before. At one point, negotiating parties thought there was a chance for the $1.4 billion stadium deal to be completed before the end of last year. Since then, "maybe next week" has been a common refrain.

But Bills Executive Vice President Ron Raccuia said Thursday he is very confident all tentative deal documents will be finalized within a few days.

"I'd be extremely disappointed if it's not," he said.

County legislators also said they have been told to expect signeddocuments by next week.

The pressure is on for the tentative deal to be formally submitted so that the Bills' stadium construction timeline doesn't get squeezed. The Erie County Stadium Corp. already has begun approving budgets for stadium-related spending.

On Wednesday, board members started clearing the way for the state to spend the first $300 million of its contribution toward stadium construction. They voted for the corporation to budget $2.6 million to hire staff and pay consultants.

The Bills hired an architect for stadium design last year, at its own risk, with the expectation that a deal would be soon forthcoming.

"I'm not raising a huge red flag about it," said Legislature Chairwoman April Baskin. "But I am aware that everything will have to stop if we don't get a legally binding agreement."

Both Poloncarz and Baskin said no stadium construction will be allowed to start before the Legislature approves the deal reached between representatives with the county, the state and the Bills. That process is expected to take a minimum of 30 days from the time the Legislature receives all the final agreements.

The Legislature may not amend or change any of the deal terms, but it can demand explanations and string out the approval process, if necessary, before voting up or down on the agreements.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said Thursday that the county is finished with the tentative agreement on its end and is just waiting on the Bills to finish up with the documents on the team's end.

"It's pretty much in the Bills' hands at this point," he said. "Everything that was the responsibility of the county is done."

He said that within the last 24 hours, another agreement was finalized and that the deal is "very close" to being finished.

Both Poloncarz and Baskin have been adamant that until the Legislature votes to approve the terms of the deal, there is no binding contract with the Bills and no stadium site work can begin.

"We just don't have documents that we can sign, and hopefully it will be done very soon, because I know the Bills want to put shovels in the ground," Poloncarz said. "Unfortunately, we can't put shovels in the ground until we have an agreement that is approved by the Legislature."

Raccuia said he would "respectfully disagree" with Poloncarz's suggestion that the Bills are holding up the completion of the stadium deal. All three sides still have a little work to do, he said, but the deal is "just about at the finish line." Nothing that remains outstanding should be cause for worry, he added.