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March 24, 2012
Looking at development around the arena site: new "center of gravity" for Brooklyn?
Atlantic Yards Report
So, I'm catching up on the March 21 Times Real Estate section article In Barclays Center’s Shadow, Awaiting What’s Next:
Indeed, among real estate professionals, the mood around the Barclays Center — the only part of the controversial Atlantic Yards project that has come to fruition — could best be described as optimistic uncertainty....
...Instead, stores are on year-to-year leases, or even month-to-month, as landlords wait to see what changes the behemoth brings. That has given the neighborhood a somewhat ragtag quality, even as other thoroughfares in and around downtown Brooklyn have flourished.
But that is likely to change. 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.”
Let's see how they market that one--maybe along with "Brooklynized" water?
Posted by steve at March 24, 2012 6:45 PM