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February 24, 2010
Barclays Center Suites to Become 'Your Home Away from Home'
Fourteen of 15 Brownstone Suites Sold
—First-of-its-Kind Loft Suites Launched in Market—
—Suite holders become members of Barclays Center Suite Alliance—
Nets Press Release via NBA.com
Is it possible that the Nets and Forest City Ratner don't see the irony in promoting an arena they plan to build over the bulldozed homes of Prospect Heights residents as "Your Home Away from Home?"
With construction ongoing at the Barclays Center site in Brooklyn, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment (BSE), an affiliate of Nets Sports and Entertainment, LLC, is introducing Barclays Center suites to prospective buyers as 'Your Home Away from Home.'
Construction is not "ongoing," certainly not in the case of the Barclays Center. They haven't yet broken ground for the arena, as residents and business owners are still in possession of their aforementioned properties, some of which are in the arena footprint.
BSE will initiate its public suite sale in March when prospective suite buyers can visit the multi-media interactive Barclays Center Showroom, located on the 38th floor of The New York Times Building in Manhattan.
Actually, the Nets initiated sales of suites 21 months ago.
The Barclays Center, to be located at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, will be designed with 104 suites, including 68 Loft Suites that will be the first of its kind in entertainment venues in the New York marketplace. The Loft Suite will consist of 10 seats, more intimate than current suites in area sports facilities, and will be marketed in part to the 40,000 small to mid-sized businesses in Brooklyn.
"More intimate" = "smaller." Perhaps hey should have called them Studio Suites.
In addition to the Loft Suites, the arena will include 15 Brownstone Suites (16 seats each) -- 14 of which are sold -- six Studio Suites, and four Party Suites. The arena will also include 11 Backstage Suites, which will offer exclusive access to a Champagne bar.
Unless the Nets are holding back about other suites being sold — and restraint is not something we typically associate with Nets Sports & Entertainment President Brett Yormark — they must have had some cancellations, because 14 out of 104 suites is significantly less than the "20% sold" that Yormark claimed in May, 2008.
[Update: Atlantic Yards Report reminds us that the claimed number of suites as of May, 2008 was 130, so "20% sold" would've translated to commitments for 26 suites. So either nearly half of alleged Barclays Center suite-buyers have changed their minds (possible), or the initial claim was what we would politely call "Yormarkian hyperbole."]
Suite buyers will also receive membership into the Barclays Center Suite Alliance, which will offer great business to business networking opportunities.
Now there's some added value.
Re-launched in September 2009 with a new design to further celebrate Brooklyn, the Barclays Center Showroom includes a mock Loft Suite with immersive theater-style viewing to provide prospective suite buyers with the opportunity to experience actual sightlines from any suite during events.
How could they possibly celebrate Brooklyn any more than they already have?
Additionally, the Showroom offers a historical timeline of sports and entertainment milestones in Brooklyn and a dynamic video showcasing the Barclays Center and the renaissance of Brooklyn that is displayed on a high-tech media cube with four six-by-six-foot screens. Ongoing construction of the Barclays Center is also streamed live to the media cube via a construction camera at the site.
In that case, they're not currently offering any programming on the "high-tech media cube."
For more information on how to own a "Home" at the Barclays Center, please call 646-616-9500.
Unless you're Bruce Ratner, in which case you should call the Empire State Development Corporation for information on how to own other people's homes in Prospect Heights.
Click here to read the press release in its entirety.
Posted by eric at February 24, 2010 10:18 AM