Buffalo Pro Soccer president says Elk Street stadium location was best fit

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — Buffalo Pro Soccer president Peter Marlette Jr. said that the Elk Street location for the team's new stadium was the best fit for where the future franchise is right now.

The site on Elk Street and Lee Street in Buffalo's Valley neighborhood near Larkinville was announced last Friday. The site, formerly the Medaille sports complex, was chosen over a location in downtown Buffalo near KeyBank Center that had previously been discussed.

The cost of the new 7,600 seat stadium is $10 million, which will be entirely privately funded. Marlette said that the downtown location would have come with a $40 million price tag, a chunk of which would have been paid for through public funds from the state. Marlette had previously said that another reason was that the stadium would not have been ready by the time the team intends to start play, in 2026. A general admission section on one of the end lines will push the capacity to close to 10,000.

"We found a great site that allowed us to meet all our goals and get in in time and we took it," Marlette said before a community town hall event Thursday night at The Banshee Irish Pub. "If I or my advisors had any question about the site we ended up going with on Elk Street wasn't a good place to be or wasn't where we should be, we wouldn't be there."

Marlette also said that he studied the failures of the Rochester Rhinos, who had tremendous success in the late 1990s before going on hiatus in 2018 before formally folding in 2022. Part of the reason for the team's demise was a stadium outside of the downtown area, which led to safety concerns. He said that ensuring the stadium was downtown was a big point of emphasis.

The team is also working with the NFTA to begin a gameday bus line to and from the stadium, as well as working with area bars to potentially provide shuttles to and from games. There are around 1,500 parking spots in the immediate vicinity, which Marlette acknowledged is about 700 spots short of what they would have wanted.

The stadium will be a modular stadium, meaning that the parts of the stadium will be built off-site and brought to Buffalo to basically put the stadium together like a puzzle. Marlette would not say whether or not if it is in the team's plans to move the stadium to the site near KeyBank Center if the land should the opportunity present itself in the future. The franchise is hoping to have shovels in the ground by this summer ahead of the team beginning play in the United Soccer League Championship, the second-highest level of professional soccer in the United States and Canada.

Air quality around the stadium due to the presence of PVS Solutions, a chemical company located next to the future stadium, remains a public concern, but Marlette again emphasized that several studies have been done in recent years, including independent studies as well as the New York State DEC, to ensure that the area is safe. He again pointed to the fact that FC Buffalo has been playing games and training there for over a year.

Building a roster, hiring a coach

Marlette said that the team is close to hiring a head coach and is in the beginning stages of building a roster.

Marlette said that he has talked to several candidates in recent weeks and has zeroed in on a candidate "who I think is probably the one." He mentioned that he talked last week with a "recently retired, remarkably famous" English Premier League player who is looking to start a coaching career.

"If you think about it, there are only so many American professional head coaching jobs available every year. Three in MLS, a couple in [USL] Championship, a couple in League One and a lot of coaches want one of those six, seven spots," Marlette said during the town hall. "It's an attractive option."

Bringing in a roster of about 25 players is also part of the equation. Unlike other American professional sports leagues the USL does not have an expansion draft. The team will have to sign players in free agency, utilize the global transfer market to buy players from other clubs around the country and world, as well as sign young, local players to academy contracts. Academy contracts would allow players to not be signed to a professional deal so as to not give up NCAA eligibility, but be on the roster and getting playing time. They will also acquire players via loans from other clubs.

"I am probably messaging different players throughout different leagues in the world for whom Buffalo might make sense for, I'm probably sending a message for a few of those every day," Marlette said. "And there's some current players playing professionally who are from Buffalo who I'm talking to constantly because who wouldn't want to represent your hometown team in a brand-new stadium and be part of that historic first season."

Marlette also said that the team is working on branding, including a team name and a logo. He said that it will reflect the city and region and will not be named "FC Buffalo," "Buffalo SC" or anything similar to that.