BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Buffalo Bills’ new $1.4 billion stadium won’t be as green or sustainable as it could be.
That’s because the stadium will not seek LEED certification, according to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and is a globally used accreditation program from the U.S. Green Building Council that helps builders reduce their buildings’ impact on the environment via the energy they consume and how they operate.
Of the six NFL stadiums built since 2010, three are LEED certified and a fourth follow LEED guidelines.
But the new Bills stadium won’t be LEED certified, Poloncarz said, because doing so would be too expensive.
“It would probably add hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of the new facility,” Poloncarz told reporters on Friday. “I know when we do LEED certification associated with buildings in Erie County it adds 15 to 20 percent alone on the cost if we didn’t do LEED certification.”
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