« It came from the Blogosphere... | Main | March 10 at Freddy's: Screening of Footage and Clips from "Battle of Brooklyn" »
March 9, 2010
New Brooklyn arena's interior design revealed
NY Post
by Rich Calder
 |
The Nets should finally have a true home-court advantage when they flee New Jersey for Brooklyn in 2012 as the team’s new $1 billion digs feature enough lower-level seating to keeps fans close to the action.
With the groundbreaking for the long-anticipated Barclays Center set for Thursday, the Nets today released renderings of the arena’s basketball and concert layouts that team officials boasted offer unparalleled sight lines.
...After reviewing the new renderings, Robert Boland, a sports management professor at New York University, said the Barclays Center’s interior has "a very retro feel to it," similar to Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
He said Barclays’ sight lines are better than Madison Square Garden’s – which is "no shock" because the Garden is 42 years old – but are "no better" than what the Nets currently offer fans at the Izod Center in New Jersey.
"The positive here is that there’s a lot of lower-bowl seating, which makes this is a great place to see a concert and should help the Nets sell more tickets, but it appears there’s too many seats behind the baskets that obstruct courtside views," said Boland, who rated the arena design "B-minus."
NoLandGrab: It appears from the renderings that the court-side seating is structural, which would render the arena incapable of accommodating an NHL-sized hockey rink — meaning no Brooklyn Islanders.
Related coverage...
Curbed, Atlantic Yards Update: New Renderings; Signage Debated!
Head on over to the Barclays Center website (or check out the gallery above) and you'll notice new interior renderings of the 675,000-square-foot bottle opener designed by Ellerbe Becket and New York's own SHoP (the architects once ran us through the design). A sports management professor told the Post that the arena has a retro feel and the sight lines are better than those at Madison Square Garden, but overall he rated the design a "B-minus." Feel the excitement!
Gothamist, Interior Of Planned Brooklyn Nets Arena Revealed
Two days before the official ground-breaking for the long-delayed Atlantic Yards megaproject, developer Bruce Ratner and the New Jersey Nets unveiled renderings of the interior of their planned Brooklyn basketball arena. After scrapping an original design by Frank Gehry over financial concerns and nixing a second design by the firm Ellerbe Becket after it was derided for being too dull, Ratner tapped Ellerbe Becket and SHoP Architects to draft up a new plan for the arena, which is dubbed the Barclays Center.
Posted by eric at March 9, 2010 11:37 AM