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June 6, 2009
Gehry: Going, going, going... gone (Part Trois)
Here are yet more takes on the starchitect Frank Gehry's exit from the proposed Atlantic Yards project.
Artinfo, Gehry Arena Design for Atlantic Yards Project Dropped
A Frank Gehry–designed, $1 billion glass-walled basketball arena for the Nets is now out of play at Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards project. The project’s developer, Bruce Ratner, has scrapped Gehry’s proposal primarily for economic reasons in favor of a less expensive design from architectural firm Ellerbe Becket.
Still, Gehry, the award-winning architect behind the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, remains the master planner for the 22-acre, $4 billion development. The arena is the centerpiece of Atlantic Yards, which has had to deal with a host of obstacles, including lawsuits and a collapsing real estate market. Ratner is trying to cut costs and start construction of the 20,000-seat arena by the end of the year. He’s also had to delay a proposed office tower and plans to build 6,400 apartments, some reserved for low- to middle-income families. The new arena design will cost about $200 million less than Gehry’s now-scuttled proposal.
AP (Via The Globe and Mail), Developer replaces Gehry as architect of arena
The owner of the New Jersey Nets has replaced the Canadian-born architect of a pricey planned arena in Brooklyn. The $1-billion Frank Gehry-designed arena was a centrepiece of the $4-billion (U.S.) Atlantic Yards development of office towers and apartments, but has been scrapped for a cheaper design.
UPI, Gehry off New York arena project
Famed architect Frank Gehry announced he is no longer involved with the planned Atlantic Yards basketball arena in New York.
A spokesman for Gehry, who had created a futuristic metallic design for the proposed NBA arena, said the split between the architect and developer Forest City Ratner was amicable and Gehry will still be working with the company on the Beekman Tower project in New York, the New York Daily News reported Friday.
Gotham Gazette, After Gehry
So what effect will Bruce Ratner’s decision to drop Frank Gehry’s much-touted design for the basketball arena mean to the future of Atlantic Yards? For one thing, the massive complex when — or more accurately if — built will have little resemblance to the glossy original plans.
The switch to a more conventional arena designed by Ellerbe Becket could save $200 million, a key consideration at a time when money for real estate projects is tight. And, the Times reported, Ratner has to act quickly. He has to start building the home for the Nets by the end of the year, according to Charles Bagli’s article, or face losing his right to use tax-exempt financing.
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Such a change could reinvigorate opposition to the entire project. “The current Atlantic Yards plan bears increasingly less resemblance to the project that was approved in 2006,” said Vin Cipolla, the president of the Municipal Art Society, told Bagli. “The replacement of Gehry further reduces the public benefits of the project, which urgently needs re-evaluation and oversight.”
Engineering News-Record, Ellerbe Becket Replaces Gehry As Architect for Brooklyn Arena
Architect Ellerbe Becket, Kansas City, has been retained by Nets owner and Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner, of Forest City Ratner Cos., to come up with a new design for the long-delayed and controversial Atlantic Yards basketball and entertainment arena in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Ellerbe Becket replaces Gehry Partners. Other key designers, New York City-based structural engineer Thornton-Tomasetti, and mechanical-electrical-plumbing engineer, WSP Flack + Kurtz, will remain on the project.
New York Press, Frank Gehry's Nets Arena Design is Dropped
The New York Times is reporting that the recession has trimmed back the development of Atlantic Yards in a major way. Developers have scrapped Frank Gehry’s $1 billion design for the new Nets Stadium in favor of a $200 million cheaper design from the Kansas City based architecture firm Ellerbe Beckett. The developer of Atlantic Yards, and chief executive of Forest City, Bruce C. Ratner saying, “the current economic climate is not right for this design,” continuing, “and with Frank’s understanding, the arena is undergoing a redesign that will make it more limited in scope."
In his article, Charles Bagli sums up some of the major problems the project is facing, “the developer is under pressure to get government approval for changes to the development’s master plan and to start the arena by December, before he loses the ability to use tax-exempt bonds. Ratner must also hold together a group of corporate advertisers at a time when companies are trying to shed those kind of financial obligations.”
Daily Intel, Frank Gehry Officially Out at Atlantic Yards Stadium
After years of lawsuits, cost-cutting, and public debate, Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards stadium project has been reborn again— this time without starchitect Frank Gehry and his daring $1 billion design. The new version of the arena will be $200 million cheaper and designed by Kansas City firm Ellerbe Becket, architects who specialize in stadiums and convention centers. The new Atlantic Yards design revealed on the Times Website—which includes the plan for the massive new Nets basketball stadium—resembles their Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, home to the Indiana Pacers. From the looks of it, the building will be a lot less striking than the glass bubble amid Gehry’s wobbly pile of boxes, but rumors that he was out have been building for months, and reports of the scaling back of his design bit by bit have been trickling out for over a year now...
Posted by steve at June 6, 2009 5:40 AM