Companies work hard behind scenes of new Bills stadium field

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (WIVB) -- Construction crews continue to work around the clock to get the future home of the Buffalo Bills ready for next season.

Earlier this month marked a major milestone: laying down the field. To help make that happen, two out-of-state companies spent years of hard work behind the scenes.

The Betts family has run Tuckahoe Farms for decades. The name comes from where the farm originated before the business moved to Hammonton, New Jersey. The Atlantic County town is known as the "blueberry capital of the world" thanks to its sandy, acidic soil which, turns out, is great for growing grass turf.

The 800-acre farm works with a number of professional sports organizations. They're the ones growing fields for places like Fenway Park in Boston, Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh, and Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. Now, they can add the new Highmark Stadium to that list.

"To grow something like what we take into an NFL stadium, we call it our gameday sod. Generally, that's between 14 and 18 months old," James Betts said. "We do it to make it so when it gets laid down, it's ready for play."

Betts said the Kentucky bluegrass laid down in Orchard Park at the beginning of October is on the younger side - only having grown for about a year before installation. With the stadium not opening until next summer, Betts said this gives the organization time to groom it just in time for winter.

"Actually, I find [the fall] the best time of year to sod. I have no hesitations doing it now," he said. "I think it's better than doing it in the spring. Snow will protect it a little bit. It's actually almost like a natural blanket over the top of it."

This also isn't the first time Tuckahoe Farms has worked with the Bills. In fact, they're longtime partners, with the team's practice field grass grown there.

"We build long relationships with customers. We're just very fortunate that their new stadium, they decided to go with real grass," Betts said.

SCG Fields is an Ohio-based contracting company. They're the contractors who worked with the Bills and the designers before installing the roughly two acres of sod.

"This is a super high advanced, super technical build," said the project manager for SCG Field, Nick Pappas. "It has over 17 miles of pipe in the ground itself underneath the stadium."

That includes a drainage system to pump and remove air and water, and a heating system to keep the grass growing through winter. Underneath the grass is gravel, then sand where the irrigation and heating systems sit.

"It's several layers of the cake, and they all kind of stack on top of each other," Pappas said. "Each system kind of works with each other to keep the grass healthy and keep the field looking as great as it is."

SCG Fields first met with the Bills and design team in 2023 before getting on site a year later.

"Because of our expertise in the industry, it allows us to do some of these higher profile jobs such as the Buffalo Bills stadium, which is one of the crown jewels so to speak of the sports building industry right now," Pappas said.

One thing that made this process smoother for crews: the entire stadium was first modeled in 3D.

"It allows you to see it before it's built, recognize potential clashes or conflicts you're going to have between contractors because, you have to remember, there's over 150 contractors out there," Pappas said. "Everybody's little pieces of scope is all going to have to come together to fit. When one guy's got something going here, and another guy's got something going here and there's conflict, how do we resolve that before it's even built?...That three dimensional modeling definitely smoothed and made the process that much easier."

Pappas was back on site at the new stadium watching as his team rolled out each strip of sod, which he said was cut a little thicker, making the grass fit easily. He said it was rewarding to see the final pieces come together.

"You have pride when that project finally comes together. You see all the hard work and all of the things you've done behind the scenes that nobody knows about, and it all comes together and it looks the way it does," Pappas said. "It's going to perform fantastic for the team. I'm really hoping you guys will be able to hang a Super Bowl banner there at the grand opening next year."