Mayor James D. Griffin and an investment group purchased the Jersey City A's of the Double-A class Eastern League for $55,000 in 1978, and the team began play as the Buffalo Bisons at War Memorial Stadium in 1979. This new franchise assumed the history of prior Buffalo Bisons teams that had played in the city from 1877 to 1970. Rich Products heir Robert E. Rich Jr. purchased the Bisons for $100,000 in 1983, and upgraded the team to the Triple-A class American Association in 1985 after buying out the Wichita Aeros for $1 million. The Bisons began drawing record crowds with innovative promotional tie-ins, most notably annual post-game concerts by The Beach Boys. Strong political support then grew to replace the aging War Memorial Stadium with what was originally known as Downtown Buffalo Sports Complex.

The venue's 13-acre footprint in downtown Buffalo has its own history. St. John's Episcopal Church originally occupied the corner of Washington Street and Swan Street, and Randall's Boarding House originally occupied the adjacent lot on Swan Street. Mark Twain famously was a resident of the boarding house while editor of the Buffalo Express. Constructed between 1846 and 1848 on land donated by Joseph Ellicott, the church remained in use until 1893 and was demolished in 1906. The land then became the site of Ellsworth Statler's first hotel, Hotel Statler, in 1907. It was later renamed Hotel Buffalo after Statler built a new hotel on Niagara Square in 1923 and sold his former location. Hotel Buffalo was demolished in 1968, and the land became a parking lot. The City of Buffalo would later acquire the land through eminent domain.


Precast concrete exterior, featuring arched window openings at the mezzanine level, rusticated joints, and inset marble panels
HOK Sport (now known as Populous) designed the downtown venue as the first retro-classic ballpark in the world. The City of Buffalo originally hired HOK Sport to design a $90 million domed stadium with a capacity of 40,000 for the same parcel of land, but the project was scaled back after New York State only approved $22.5 million in funding instead of the $40 million requested. The open-air venue was designed to fit within the neighborhood's existing architecture of the Ellicott Square Building, the Main-Seneca Building, Marine Midland Center and the Old Post Office. Located in close proximity to Buffalo Memorial Auditorium and along the newly built Buffalo Metro Rail, the venue would be an attractive and accessible destination for suburban residents. The same design firm would later bring this concept to Major League Baseball with Oriole Park at Camden Yards. The venue's exterior would be constructed from precast concrete, featuring arched window openings at the mezzanine level, rusticated joints, and inset marble panels. The baseball field itself would feature a Kentucky Bluegrass playing surface and have dimensions that were designed to mirror those of pitcher-friendly Royals Stadium.

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