It is believed that the KeyBank Center needs more than $200M worth of renovations, and if Erie County walks away from its lease, the city is responsible for it.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz surprised a lot of people when he told 2 On Your Side that he intends walk away from the KeyBank Center lease when it expires on October 1, 2025.
“It is our intention to walk away,” County Executive Poloncarz told 2 On Your Side on April 4. “On an annual basis, Erie County is putting millions of dollars annually into the current facility, just on maintenance.”
City of Buffalo lawmakers were also caught off guard by the announcement from Poloncarz.
“We haven’t had any conversations with the county or the Sabres about that yet,” said acting Mayor Chris Scanlon on April 8. “Hopefully negotiations in the future will lead to a situation where it doesn’t lead to any additional incurred costs.”
The question of who owns KeyBank Center is complicated.
The county technically owns it, in the sense that it’s the municipality responsible for it during the current 30-year lease.
The lease expires on Oct. 1, and subsequently, ownership and responsibility of the facility will revert back to the City of Buffalo.
That means the city is on the hook for, what is believed to be, more than $200 million in renovations that are needed at the downtown arena.
“The sheer magnitude of the costs that need to fix KeyBank, the city just could not shoulder,” Fillmore District council member Mitch Nowakowski said. “Our total capital budget is $38 million for a year for all of our city work.”
The city is facing a $50 million budget deficit currently. While the proposed budget for next fiscal year includes an 8% property tax increase, 3% bed tax, and a proposal to sell city-owned parking garages, if the city has to foot the bill for KeyBank Center renovations it would require seven budget cycles worth of capital expenditures.
“There’s no way that the city could, at this time, or in the near future, afford to take on such a large, monumental task of the KeyBank center, and then investing resources in it,” Nowakowski said.
Council member Nowakowski said the city couldn’t assume responsibility of the nearly 30-year-old downtown arena without help from New York State.
“We would really need the intervention of the state to be able to make those capital requests,” Nowakowski said.
The timing of Poloncarz’s announcement comes when the Mayor’s office and Common Council are occupied with budget negotiations.
City lawmakers have to have the budget finalized by May 26.
That leaves June and July for the city to sort out the particulars related to assuming ownership of the arena.
The council is off during August and returns to chambers in September.
“I think we really need to get everybody at the table to start having the same discussions,” Nowakowski said. “October is coming and there’s nothing worse in politics than an October surprise.”
Construction of KeyBank Center was completed in September 1996, at a cost of $127.5 million, approximately $256 million in 2025 dollars.
2 On Your Side reached out to acting Mayor Scanlon’s office for a comment about the KeyBank Center lease issue, but did not yet receive a response.
