A downtown dome would boost the economy

The recent Buffalo News report on 20,000 fewer workers downtown after Covid-19 proves how wrong our governor and the county executive were in not insisting that the new Bills stadium be equipped with a dome and located in the city center.

Downtown hotels are losing customers to poorly regulated and cheaper Airbnb.

If a downtown stadium cost a billion dollars more, that extra cost would be quickly paid off, boosting the downtown economy, creating more jobs, the Braymiller supermarket wouldn’t need a subsidy, Hundreds of well-off members of the Bills Mafia would move into existing and new apartments, including a guaranteed season ticket and ticket for Taylor Swift if she came here.

They could walk to games and concerts.

Conventions and festivals could use a new stadium year-round.

From Clinton’s Erie Canal, Olmsted’s magnificent parks, Grover Cleveland’s reforms, Niagara Falls’ water power, and Father Baker’s OLV Cathedral, Buffalo has never had a great builder or leader. The billions spent downtown were wasted, while the East Side was neglected.

To paraphrase Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront,” our Orchard Park Bills “could” become the Buffalo Bills.