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August 4, 2008
Bruce Ratner makes it official: AY arena would open in mid-2011 (best-case scenario)
Atlantic Yards Report
Longtime NoLandGrab readers who have repeatedly watched the arena's opening date slip over the years have known for some time that Bruce Ratner's claims that the arena would be ready for the 2010-2011 basketball season amounted to a tall tale — now it's official.
Despite public statements to the contrary, as on the Barclays Center web site, the New Jersey Nets have three, not two, more years at the Izod Center in the Meadowlands--and that's in a best-case scenario.
The word comes directly from Forest City Ratner president (and Nets majority owner) Bruce Ratner, who indicated to shareholders in June that construction would start in January and take two-and-a-half years--a timetable far different from the developer's and team's public statements, including to season ticket-holders.
[A]t the June 19 annual meeting in Cleveland of Forest City Enterprises, parent of Forest City Ratner, Bruce Ratner revised his prediction by one year, to mid-2011, which means the arena would open for the 2011-2012 season, three seasons from now.
From the lips of Bruce:
[W]e're doing very well on the Atlantic Yards project. Our hope is that we can close our loans and close the transaction by the end of the year. And then it will be about two and a half years to build our arena, and then the Nets will move from New Jersey to Brooklyn. So, we're working hard at it, and I think we're finally close to a closing.
Norman Oder explains:
If it takes 2.5 years to build the arena, and construction starts in January 2009, the arena would open in July 2011. Still, keep in mind that the Nets have extended their lease in their current facility to 2012-13, just in case.
Also keep in mind that there's no certainty that groundbreaking for the arena would occur in January--legal cases, including the just-filed state eminent domain lawsuit, may still be pending.
Read the rest of the article for the litany of public statements made by Forest City and Nets executives, meant to convince the media and public to the contrary.
NoLandGrab: Federal regulations and laws governing statements to shareholders force corporate executives to be more candid than when they make statements to the press, only proving that Bruce C. Ratner can squeeze out something that resembles the truth when his ass is on the line.
Posted by lumi at August 4, 2008 3:53 AM