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June 23, 2006
Build Planned Nets’ Arena in Coney Island?
Anti-Atlantic Yards Group Revives an Old Idea
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Three blogs [and another Brooklyn Paper] in the past three days have made extensive arguments about why, in their opinion, Coney Island is still a viable location for a professional basketball arena in Brooklyn....
Former Salt Lake City Deputy Mayor and transportation consultant Brian Hatch, on his New York Games blog (“Ratner Originally Wanted a Coney Island Arena”), sports columnist Michael O’Keeffe on the Daily News’ I-Team blog (“The Coney Island Nets”) and critic Norman Oder on his Atlantic Yards Report (“Coney Island the place for an arena? Marty used to think so”) each have laid out arguments as to why Coney Island should re-enter the discussion.
However, Marty isn't buying it, saying he supports the affordable housing, and Ratner spokesperson Joe DePlasco points out:
"The reason Atlantic Yards was decided on is that Atlantic Yards is a transit hub, not only the 10 subway lines, but also the LIRR and multiple bus lines. It’s in close proximity to Queens, Long Island, Manhattan and all parts of Brooklyn."
NoLandGrab: DePlasco loves to see if people are paying attention, so he left out New Jersey from the list. Forest City Ratner commissioned a report from sports economist Andrew Zimablist that assumed that nearly one third of the current fan base in NJ would follow the team to Brooklyn and that these revenues would create a net gain for NYC and NY State. Though these conclusions are specious, these NJ fans would be better served by a Coney Island arena since we can assume that they would be driving anyway.
Posted by lumi at June 23, 2006 7:04 AM