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March 21, 2012
In Barclays Center’s Shadow, Awaiting What’s Next
The New York Times
by Fred A. Bernstein
Triangle Sports has occupied the same three-cornered site on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn since 1916. But in January, the store’s owners put the 1,570-square-foot parcel on the market.
What motivated them was the behemoth across the street — the Barclays Center, the 19,000-seat arena where the Nets will play, and which is expected to open in just six months. The Nets’ home games, as well as a full schedule of concerts and the traffic that will accompany them, promise to bring wholesale change to the surrounding neighborhood — and a corresponding increase in real estate prices.
Maybe. On the other hand, stuff like this makes it sound as if there's an arena-driven real estate bubble getting ready to pop.
Cyril Aouizerate, the owner of Mama Shelter, a stylish boutique hotel in the outlying 20th Arrondissement of Paris, said he was “90 percent sure” he would be opening a Mama Shelter at a site near the arena. Mr. Aouizerate said he had rejected neighborhoods like Williamsburg as “too bourgeois-bohème,” in favor of the less established Boerum Hill area, where he is negotiating with property owners.
Though he is aware that the building is named for a bank and will house a basketball team, he said, "I’m more interested in the fact that Jay-Z is involved."
“That’s a name,” he said, “that we can sell to customers around the world.”
Yes, people will be lining up to stay in a hotel a few blocks from an arena that houses a losing team that's less than 1% owned by Jay-Z.
The arena will brand the neighborhood around it, said Louis V. Greco, a prominent Brooklyn developer. “People will be able to say, ‘I live a block from Barclays Center,’ ” Mr. Greco said.
NoLandGrab: Except they're likely to be saying that through clenched teeth, and you won't be able to hear them over the sound of the honking.
Posted by eric at March 21, 2012 10:31 AM