When you drive up Southwestern Blvd. (Route 20) in Orchard Park, you are overwhelmed by the immensity of the new Buffalo Bills stadium.

It stands there 156 ft. tall, or about the same height as a 14-story building. Yet, what makes it so immense is that it is like seeing ten or twelve such buildings all tied together. The size of it dominates the horizon.

I can remember only two other public work projects in Western New York than can even compare with it–one being the completion of the New York State Thruway in 1960 and the other, at about the same time, the building and completion of the Niagara Power Project in Niagara Falls.

Yet those projects did not have the visual impact of the new Bills stadium. The Thruway was a linear roadway, and you didn’t sense its presence much until you drove on it.

The Niagara Power Project was built mostly underground carrying water from above the first rapids to below the last rapids of the Niagara River through two large 60 ft. diameter buried conduits thus doubling the height (or head) of falling water of prior power plants which had been built right at the base of the falls. Though having great impact, being built largely below ground, the Power Project is next to invisible as you travel through our area.

Not so with the new Bills stadium. It stands out like the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. It is going to be a new “marker” for Western New York.

I remember back to the days when Ralph Wilson paid a pittance for this football team, and they were playing their games at the old “Rock Pile” Stadium in Buffalo. I went to some of those games. Then came the big decision to move the Bills to the suburbs at One Bills Drive, their current stadium. Here the Bills became the beloved and integral part of Western New York that we now know.

Yet, I may still live long enough to see them playing in another brand new stadium in Orchard Park, this one costing $1.5 billion. Who would have “thunk” it?

I have to give credit to Terry Pegula, owner of the Bills and formerly from Olean, who stepped up to the plate to make it happen. I, for one, also commend the Governor and the State of New York for pitching in. Western New York, on its own, did not have the means or where-with-all to get it done. It took a commitment from the State of New York. It also didn’t hurt that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, born in Jamestown, also wanted the new stadium.

The Bills are still the only team in the NFL homeported in New York. The Jets and the Giants play their games in New Jersey.

When it comes to economic development and growing Western New York, I believe that the new Bills Stadium will be of significant help. When people come to this area looking for a job or a new home, after seeing Niagara Falls, they are going to say: “Now, take me to that new Bills Stadium!”

Even if you don’t like football, you must admit that having an NFL team in a small-market town like Buffalo is a significant “feather in our cap.” Will we ever make it to the Super Bowl? Who knows? But, on we go…Go Bills!

Rolland Kidder is a Stow resident.