Penn State's Beaver Stadium is being considered as a temporary home for the Buffalo Bills if the team builds a new stadium, according to a report.
RochesterFirst reports that Penn State and Toronto are "both possibilities should [the Bills] need a temporary home" in the future. That could come in a few years if the Bills finalize a plan to build a new venue to replace Highmark Stadium.
According to the story, the Bills' new stadium could be ready by 2025, but the team's lease expires in 2023. The Bills are exploring alternate facilities should they need to relocate for a season or longer, RochesterFirst reports.
Why is Beaver Stadium mentioned as a potential site? Bills owners Terry and Kim Pegula donated more than $100 million to launch Penn State's men and women's Division I ice hockey programs and build their namesake arena on campus. Terry Pegula is a 1973 Penn State graduate.
Penn State officials have mentioned for several years how they want Beaver Stadium to host more than seven events per year. But it's unclear whether Penn State would make such a significant commitment while considering a major renovation plan for Beaver Stadium.
Penn State has partnered with the architectural firm Populous to continue studying the renovations. A Beaver Stadium makeover was a signature component of the Athletics Facilities Master Plan announced in 2017.
Part of the master plan's focus is determining how to make Beaver Stadium a year-round venue capable of hosting sports such as soccer and hockey and other events.
"This study is really the next step in our journey to renovate Beaver Stadium," Penn State Athletic Director Sandy Barbour said during the recent virtual Coaches Caravan. "Obviously it will be a massive, multiyear project, and I want to be very clear: We're not getting ready to put any shovels in the ground. We need to make sure that our planning and our decisions about what our needs are and how we're going to address those needs are addressed in this study.
"We're talking to a lot of different constituents on campus and off about what our needs are and looking at really having Beaver Stadium as an asset to our community but be used more than eight or nine days out of the year. So what other activities, what other benefits to the community, can be housed in Beaver Stadium that would make it more than an eight-day-a-year facility?"
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