Ground breaks on $50 million sports and entertainment complex in Amherst

Michael Mroziak
/
BTPM News

For years, the former Buffalo Gun Club site on the 300 block of Maple Road in Amherst has been an idle lot. That will soon change.

Business partners, developers, and elected officials were among those grabbing a shovel Monday morning and ceremonially tossing dirt from a mound. Not far was a small tent where, moments before, they spoke about the future sports and entertainment complex that will be constructed there.

Luckily, the groundbreaking ceremony ended before steady rain could move in, but there were some raindrops in between.

“Which is precisely why we need to build a place like this, as some form of precipitation nine months out of the year, either saturating our fields or making it inclement for families to be outside. We’re giving you something that that we’ve always wanted,” said Dr. Brian McGrath, one of the co-founders of the 716 Sports Complex, a $50 million, 331,000-square-foot campus that will be built in two phases on the site.

Phase 1 calls for construction of a dome that will house space for various sports, including soccer, basketball, volleyball, pickleball and track.

There will also be services available, including on-site athletic trainers to promote a safe playing environment.

“As a sports medicine physician growing up in Western New York and seeing all the resources for all of our college and pro teams, the goal was to bring that down to the community, where kids can play and the community could gather,” said Dr. Marc Fineberg, another co-founder. “The vision is to build the safest place to practice and play sports in America. The way that we’re going to do that, we’re going to take this great community, we’re going to surround it with wellness, nutrition, and really a great facility.”

Michael Mroziak
/
BTPM News

A few hundred yards to the east is the Audubon Golf Course. To the immediate west, the town’s softball diamonds, and on the other side of that complex is Northtown Center, home to four ice rinks. Local officials, including Amherst Town Councilmember Michael Szukala, see this latest project as one that further creates a sports hub in this neighborhood.

“When this facility is completed, there won’t be anything like it between Erie, Pennsylvania, and Syracuse, New York. It’s wonderful,” Szukala said. “There’ll be a running track and a number of other facilities, including a hotel and medical facilities. … We’ll become a sports mecca, and that’s great for the town and great for the community.”

Sports tourism has become an important economic engine for local facilities. The neighboring softball and ice facilities host tournaments and draw participants from beyond Western New York. Northtown Center, for example, has hosted numerous New York State Amateur Hockey and USA Hockey championship tournaments over the past several years.

The people developing 716 Sports Complex see their future facility as one that first serves the local community, but they expect it, too, will gain the attention of people beyond the region.

“We’re not building this building or this complex for people to come to Western New York. That’s not the basis of it. We’re trying to train our own local athletes, and we’re trying to make the population and community of Western New York healthier,” McGrath said. “But we do believe in this phase that we will have all these other people wanting to come and practice and play against our kids in our youth athletics.”

Phase 1 is expected to be completed by the spring of 2027. The second phase will involve construction of an entertainment facility and hotel.

The project is moving forward with private investment with some tax incentives, Amherst Industrial Development Agency executive director David Mingoia explained.

“Typically, these projects are built 100% publicly. The municipality, the town, would float a bond. In this particular case, we’re able to support it with some initial tax breaks on the front end, but it’s going to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax revenue over the over the 15-year term,” Mingoia said.