We know the location that Buffalo’s USL club will call home after Buffalo Pro Soccer announced plans to build a 7,600 seat stadium at Elk and Lee Street. 

The announcement is a major benchmark in the process to bring a premier professional soccer franchise to Buffalo. Buffalo Pro Soccer President Peter Marlette Jr. has been consistent in his plan to launch the team for the 2026 season and finalizing a stadium site was vital if that timeline is to be met. 

This is the second site to be connected to the team, as a preferred site in the Cobblestone District on the HSBC Artium lot owned by Douglas Jemal was previously announced. That site would have required a public investment of about $20 million per reports. Although the downtown site was far and away the best location for the stadium, if the public funding wasn’t going to be available, there isn’t much more to say about shifting away from the Cobblestone site. 

Make no mistake, the downtown site would have been a home run. It says a lot that The Buffalo News reported that the city was encouraging Marlette and the club to look at the site. So it’s unfortunate the stars didn’t align on the public funding to make it work. But the inability to secure public funding leaves that site dead in the water and out of the club’s control. 

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