« Lupica says Ratner's flacks are orchestrating emails | Main | ‘Half-built sites’ cast shadow on New York’s economic landscape »
March 29, 2009
Economics may keep Nets here
Jersey Journal via NJ.com
The bad national economy may have some say on where New Jersey's National Basketball League franchise will play its home games in the future. For now, Nets ownership has said, the team will be in a new arena in Brooklyn, but the architect for the New York City project is not so sure.
Frank Gehry, the famous architect, talked about the new Nets arena in a trade publication, Architect's Newspaper, according to The New York Daily News.
...Now, the economy has made financing difficult to obtain. The Daily News reported that Gehry's Los Angeles-based design firm laid off all two dozen employees working on the Atlantic Yards project in November.
The Nets are still playing at the Izod Center in the Meadowlands, an aging arena once listed by one sports publication as the worst in the NBA. Another tenant, the New Jersey Devils pro hockey team, constructed its own arena, The Prudential, or "The Rock," in Newark, and is enjoying decent attendance figures.
It is no secret that the Devils would like the Nets as a tenant. Despite protestations that they will play in New York City's Kings County, the Nets scheduled two preseason games for this fall in The Rock. Apparently the NBA franchise is not in total denial.
There may be a silver lining in the economic dark clouds that will allow the Nets to stay in the Garden State.
Posted by eric at March 29, 2009 11:28 AM