February 6, 2012
Andrea Bocelli
Wednesday, December 05, 2012 at [Time TBA]
Barclays Center, Brooklyn, NY
Ticketnetwork
One enterprising Barclays Center suiteholder (Roger Green?) is already offering up his Andrea Bocelli tickets on the secondary market...
 |
$97 for parking? No thanks, we'll circle local blocks for a few minutes before creating our own "parking space."
Wiser opera fans might just choose to make a $1,250 contribution to Channel Thirteen, instead...
Featured Thank You Gift:
2 Tickets: Andrea Bocelli Dec. 5, 2012 at Barclays Center Brooklyn NY Gold Level Orchestra & Front side of Arena plus DVD: Andrea Bocelli Concerto, One Night in Central Park
EXCLUSIVE seats! New York Public Television is the only place to secure tickets to see the one and only Andrea Bocelli LIVE in concert on Wednesday, December 5th, 2012 in his only NYC area appearance. He will perform at the brand new Barclays Center, centrally located in Brooklyn! Barclays Center will be served by 9 different subway lines and the LIRR. It is 8 minutes from Wall Street, 18 minutes from Penn Station and 20 minutes from Times Square or Grand Central Station. The Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges and the Holland Tunnel are a quick drive away!
NoLandGrab: That stage configuration looks suspiciously like the proposed "hockey horseshoe."
Posted by eric at 10:45 AM
February 4, 2012
Gallof: Brooklyn Going After Islanders Hard, Making ‘Aggressive Sales Pitch’
CBS 2 New York
By B.D. Gallof, WFAN.com
Despite earlier skepticism and the lack of any new developments since being mentioned two days ago, this author has written a new article covering this story.
The confirmed preseason NHL game next season at the Barclays Center is part of a larger initiative to get the Islanders and owner Charles Wang to consider permanent relocation to Brooklyn, WFAN.com has learned.
The Islanders will host the Devils on Oct. 2, a fact that I first reported two weeks ago and was made official on Thursday.
According to sources, including one within the NHL and another with knowledge of the Barclays Center, the venue is making an “aggressive sales pitch.” In addition, the league source said “the chances of the New York Islanders to Brooklyn are actually pretty good.” The preseason game, sources said, is being viewed as a chance for Wang to get a sense of what life would be like in Brooklyn.
Posted by steve at 2:54 PM
February 3, 2012
Gallof: A New Home? Don’t Believe The Hype, Islanders Fans
Brooklyn! Trades! Venues! Excitement? It's Time To Temper The Expectations
CBS New York
by B.D. Gallof
More cold water for the Brooklyn Islanders fantasy.
Despite the inevitable media buzz and the glimmer of hope this will create for a downtrodden fan base, the realities of Brooklyn being any more than a diversion and attempt to pick up some interest from other areas, like Queens and Suffolk, while sending a message to Nassau, aren’t many.
The ultimate goal with these smokescreens is to get someone to ante up some options for the team as its lease with Nassau County winds down. The idea of Brooklyn two or three years ago might have had more promise. Back then, the media and blogosphere would innocently parrot notions. Now, anyone parroting them is instead feeding into the Islanders’ own PR aims and hype.
Brooklyn is wrought with issues.
Posted by eric at 1:48 PM
February 2, 2012
The Islanders Are Coming! The Islanders Are Coming!
Runnin' Scared
by Neil deMause
There's one problem with that scenario: As part of the frugality-induced downsizing of the Nets' arena that took place when Ratner sacked architect Frank Gehry in 2009, the building's floor is now sized only for hoops, not pucks. The solution proposed by the Brooklyn arena operators has been to reduce the building's capacity from 18,000 to 14,500 seats for hockey. Nets spokes-VP Barry Baum tells the Voice that this "would involve a decreased capacity in the upper and lower seats behind one of the goals" — likely along the lines of what the AT&T Center in San Antonio does for the minor-league Rampage, with one entire end taken up by a giant ad board.
That works fine for minor-league hockey, and should be good enough for an exhibition game, especially when the Islanders aren't even drawing 14,500 fans a game out in Uniondale. But for a permanent home of an NHL franchise? That'd be more problematic.
First off, a hypothetical Brooklyn Islanders would be playing in the league's smallest arena: The Winnipeg Jets are the current record holders, squeezing into the 15,000-seat MTS Centre. At 14,500 seats, in fact, the Isles would be doomed to draw less than all but two non-Islander NHL teams (the Dallas Stars and the when-are-they-moving-to-Canada-already Phoenix Coyotes) — not a vision to warm the cockles of a pro sports owner's heart.
Then too, there's the little matter that the Islanders would be sub-tenants of the Nets in Brooklyn, which means giving up first dibs on all the suite revenue, ad board and concessions sales, and other boodle that makes having a brand-new arena such a lucrative prospect for sports teams.
Related coverage...
F'd in Park Slope, MARTY PUTS THE BARCLAY CENTER ON ICE
As for Marty, he said ice hockey is the tip of the iceberg for the ugliest arena ever built. He has dreams of monster truck races, Ringley Brothers Circus and concerts from Jay-Z, just to name a few. Sorry Marty, no matter how many awesome monster trucks or gentle elephants in festive head gear you parade through that rat's nest, it won't make it any prettier.
Posted by eric at 12:50 PM
Brooklyn 'courts' more tourists with Barclays Center venue
amNY
by Erik Ortiz
Brooklyn's making a play for the millions of tourists who come to the city -- and wagering that its new arena will win over more visitors.
Elected officials and sports execs want to give Manhattan a run for its tourism dollars, although it is uncertain whether the new Barclays Center -- set to open Sept. 28 with a gala concert by Jay-Z, a part owner of the Nets -- will score.
"When all is said and done, it will be another jewel in the crown of Brooklyn," Tony Muia, who runs "A Slice of Brooklyn" bus tour, said of the upcoming arena.
Tour buses are exactly what we need at the confluence of Flatbush, Atlantic and Fourth Avenues.
Triangle Sports, a 96-year-old business across from Barclays Center, is being sold. It could become an upscale restaurant or retailer catering to visitors and locals alike.
"The stretch [of Flatbush Avenue] is packed," said Geoff Bailey, vice president of retail services for TerraCRG, which is marketing the Triangle Sports property. "There are new restaurants coming and [that are] rumored to include big New York chefs. It gives people a reason to come to the area and linger."
Because nothing says "fine dining" like an arena.
Posted by eric at 11:10 AM
February 1, 2012
Testing the Ice Where Hockey Was an Afterthought
The New York Times
by Liz Robbins
The New York Islanders, tied for last place in their conference and playing in the obsolete Nassau Coliseum, are scheduled to play an exhibition game against the New Jersey Devils in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Oct. 2, perhaps to test the ice for a future move.
The arena that had been designed, and redesigned, for basketball will now transform somewhat awkwardly to accommodate hockey for its first sporting event days after the building opens with a concert by Jay-Z. The Nets will start playing there in mid-October.
...The Barclays Center, under the original design of Frank Gehry, was configured to accommodate professional hockey. But when Mr. Gehry was replaced by SHoP Architects and the company now known as Aecom, hockey became an afterthought. Now, the developer of the arena and the surrounding Atlantic Yards site, Forest City Ratner Companies, is adjusting to make the arena suitable for hockey.
According to Robert Sanna, Forest City Ratner’s executive vice president for construction and design development, the seating capacity will be reduced to 14,500 from 18,000 for basketball, which would make it the league’s smallest rink. Retractable seats will mostly be collapsed on one end, closest to the Atlantic Terminal side, and therefore the alignment around the rink will resemble a horseshoe.
NoLandGrab: "Somewhat awkwardly?" That's an understatement. "Suitable for hockey?" Well, yes, it would have ice.
Related coverage...
Let this once and for all put an end to talk of an NHL team calling the Barclays Center of Brooklyn™ home — we're certain no NHL rink is configured as "somewhat awkwardly" as this...
New York Islanders Adrift, The Hockey Configuration of the Barclays Center
 |
The configuration for hockey will be the horseshoe shape that I thought it would be according to a New York Times article.
The New York Times, Islanders to Play Devils in Preseason Game at New Arena in Brooklyn
For the Islanders, this is purely a scare tactic...
The announcement serves as another shot across the bow of Nassau County politicians and voters, who have rejected every effort by Islanders owner Charles Wang to upgrade or replace Nassau Coliseum, the club’s 40-year-old home. Although the 16,250-seat Coliseum is one of the N.H.L.’s best buildings for sightlines and intimacy, it is virtually inaccessible by public transit and has few of the money-spinning corporate luxury enticements that provide revenue at other arenas.
...N.H.L. Commissioner Gary Bettman has been a vocal supporter of Wang’s efforts to get a new or extensively upgraded building for the Islanders. He commented briefly on the Islanders situation in answer to reporters’ questions Saturday during the N.H.L. All-Star weekend in Ottawa.
“They still have three and a half years to go,” Bettman said, referring to the club’s Nassau Coliseum lease. “Long Island deserves a new building, not just for hockey but for concerts and family shows and the like.”
Gothamist, Islanders To Play In Brooklyn! For One Game
GOAL! The rumors were (sort of) true! Hockey is really coming to Brooklyn...for at least one game. Yup, despite concerns that the Barclays Center was too small for regulation hockey, the much-maligned Atlantic Yards stadium has announced that on October 2, 2012 the Islanders are going to play the New Jersey Devils. In Brooklyn!
Posted by eric at 12:44 PM
YIKES! Brooklyn Nets’ Barclays Center 1.0 “Concept Court” Looks Frighteningly Real
Brooklynian
Wow! Or Yikes! Or both. Mythbuster created this “Concept Court” called Brooklyns Nets’ Barclays Center 1.0. So Brooklyn basketball is just around the corner (literally). This brings it all into focus. Maybe a bit too sharp. Until now, “Brooklyn Nets” has seemed like some distant figment of Bruce Ratner’s imagination (or Jay-Z’s). What has it been, 7 years??
 |
NoLandGrab: Seven minutes gone and the Nets haven't put any points on the board? Seems pretty real to us. And it's been eight years.
Posted by eric at 12:05 PM
January 31, 2012
Islanders head to Brooklyn -for one game
Newsday
Et voila, exactly as we predicted: the Islanders are coming to Brooklyn — for three hours.
The Islanders announced Tuesday they will play a preaseason game at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn against the Devils on Oct. 2, marking the first NHL game ever to be played in Brooklyn.
Jay-Z will open the new arena with a concert on Sept. 28 followed by the Islanders-Devils preseason game four days later.
NoLandGrab: Exhibition hockey. Just as exciting as regular-season Nets basketball.
Posted by eric at 11:56 AM
Marty’s goal: Hockey in Brooklyn
Brooklyn Daily
by Dan MacLeod
Like the antagonist in a bad horror movie, the phony idea that a pro hockey franchise might someday call the Barclays Center of Brooklyn™ home keeps coming back from the dead — despite being killed again and again.
Borough President Markowitz wants to put the Barclays Center on ice — and hinted that hockey will indeed be coming to the soon-to-be-opened $1 billion arena as he teased his agenda for the coming year at the Bay Ridge Community Council’s Presidents’ Luncheon on Saturday.
“It would be great to see some hockey at the arena,” the uncharacteristically tight-lipped Beep told us before zipping out of the Bay Ridge Manor on 76th Street, claiming that any official announcements will be made at his annual State of the Borough address tomorrow. “In Brooklyn, there should be an NHL team, no question.”
NoLandGrab: "Some hockey?" Sure, the Islanders might schedule an exhibition game or two in Brooklyn. It's possible the Rangers might do the same as they complete the Madison Square Garden renovation next fall. But the seating capacity and awful sightlines make the arena an untenable home-ice disadvantage.
Posted by eric at 10:34 AM
January 30, 2012
Lingering questions: Where's the Barclays Center security plan? What precinct will be in charge? Who'll pay for traffic agents?
Atlantic Yards Report
Local elected officials are still waiting to examine the security plan presumably prepared for the Barclays Center arena, but are not getting very far. No one knows yet which police precinct will be in charge of the arena.
And there's still no clarity on whether the developer would pay for traffic agents needed for the area.
In other words, as the opening of the Barclays Center approaches in September, some major questions remain unanswered, as was aired at the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting January 26, held at Brooklyn Borough Hall with agencies and officials whose work touches on the project.
NoLandGrab: Don't worry, the NYPD has this covered — they're just going to show The Third Jihad on the Jumbotron before every arena event.
Posted by eric at 11:28 AM
With transportation plan delayed, Nets finally survey fans about transportation options regarding Barclays Center attendance
Atlantic Yards Report
What a coincidence: a day after a public meeting in which officials revealed delays in the long-awaited Transportation Demand Management plan for the Barclays Center, Nets Basketball on January 27 sent "an important online survey about our move to Barclays Center in Brooklyn next season" to those on its mailing list.
The survey, which offered the opportunity to win "autographed merchandise, courtside seats to a NETS game or a NETS Fan Experience package!," seemed designed to alert people to the extensive public transportation options and deter them from driving.
However, should word-of-mouth or advertising attract drivers to non-arena-related garages or to residential streets in search of free parking, that will hamper the effort to promote transit use.
Last week, Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project, for Empire State Development suggested that the delay in the NBA season hampered development of the plan. Perhaps, but there's no reason why those on the Nets' mailing list could not have been previously surveyed.
Posted by eric at 11:21 AM
January 28, 2012
Could Barclays Center beer sales be cut off before third quarter ends? Nope
Atlantic Yards Report
In 2005, in response to a brawl between players and fans in Detroit, the National Basketball Association promulgated a Fan Code of Conduct, including a a ban on alcohol sales during the fourth quarter, a 24-ounce limit on the size of alcoholic drinks and a limit of two alcoholic drinks per customer.
But no NBA arena will be abutting a residential neighborhood as closely as the Barclays Center, scheduled to open for basketball in October, and neighbors are concerned about noise, sanitation, driving--and inebriated fans leaving the arena.
At the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting January 26, Forest City Ratner executive Jane Marshall said that a code of conduct is being developed for the arena, and will be shared with the public. "I believe the NBA requirement is: after the third quarter, they stop [beer sales]. I don't believe we will be able to go any earlier than that.
When will that code of conduct be available?
"We're shooting to have a robust discussion about a lot of these issues, starting at the end of the spring," Marshall said.
Is there any possibility that the beer cutoff could be earlier than the end of the third quarter, asked Rami Metal, representing Council Member Steve Levin.
"I'm saying that I think it's impossible," responded Marshall.
Posted by steve at 5:22 PM
January 26, 2012
Florida Law Implemented in New York Would Actually Bring Housing to Atlantic Yards Site
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
New York ain't Florida but the following article reminds us of two things:
1. Bruce Ratner demolished a long-term homeless shelter scattering the most vulnerable amongst us all over the city in order to build a... long-term surface parking lot that will include parking for the Barclays Center of Brooklyn©.
2. If New York had this Florida law and implemented it at least Atlantic Yards would actually provide some form of housing, which it currently is not doing at all:
Florida law would turn its publicly funded ballparks and stadiums into homeless shelters
By 'Duk | Big League Stew | Yahoo! SportsCould the new Marlins ballpark or the Tampa Bay Rays' Tropicana Field serve as a homeless shelter for the 270 or so nights a year that they're not used for baseball?
If two Florida lawmakers have their way, they might. As reported by the Miami Herald, state legislators have unearthed an obscure law that has not been enforced since it was adopted in 1988. It states that any ballpark or stadium that receives taxpayer money shall serve as a homeless shelter on the dates that it is not in use.
Now, a new bill would punish owners of teams who play in publicly funded stadiums if they don't provide a haven for the homeless.
Posted by eric at 11:01 AM
January 22, 2012
Nets/Barclays CEO Yormark claims "all I’m seeing is support for this project" and every decision has "put Brooklyn first"
Atlantic Yards Report
SLAM magazine recently held a Q&A with Nets/Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark, who confirmed that he is truly looking through rose-colored glasses.
...
But I think this project, from Day One, has been about bringing sports entertainment back to Brooklyn. It’s been about Brooklyn, it’s been about job creation, it’s been about affordable housing. It’s been out doing what’s right for Brooklyn. There hasn’t been a decision that we’ve made that hasn’t put Brooklyn first and the people of Brooklyn first. If there are a few people out there who aren’t supportive, so be it. It is what it is.
...
Every decision has "put Brooklyn first"?
How about Bruce Ratner's acknowledgment that "the existing incentives for developments where half the units are priced for middle- and low-income tenants 'don't work for a high-rise building that's union built'" and that the announced and promoted ten-year timetable "was never supposed to be the time we were supposed to build them in.”
Posted by steve at 11:27 PM
January 19, 2012
Local report: still murkiness about reopening of ASI Limited, arena facade contractor; company won't provide info about number of people working
Atlantic Yards Report
While the shell of Bruce Ratner's modular residential building may be ugly, at least it will have a shell.
When Crain's New York Business last week reported that ASI Limited had resumed production of the weathered steel panels for the façade of the Barclays Center, it noted that contractor Hunt Construction was "looking for additional companies to make the steel."
That suggested there was lingering doubt, and a report yesterday in the Zionsville Times-Sentinel, Contractor, Ohio bank assume control of ASI, leaves some additional doubt.
While ASI Limited has apparently reopened, thanks to the role of a bonding company, Employment Plus Inc., of Bloomington, is suing ASI "for nearly $838,000 it alleges is owed in salaries for temporary workers," the newspaper reported.
Moreover, the newspaper reported,"the Indiana Department of Workforce Development has still not been contacted by ASI about the number of persons who have gone back to work," despite email and voicemail messages requesting information.
NoLandGrab: Why do we get the feeling there's more to this story than has yet come to light?
Posted by eric at 5:02 PM
January 16, 2012
One arena, three flags and a tree at 6th & Pacific
 |
Barclays Center Arena of Atlantic Yards
Pacific Street at 6th Avenue
Prospect Heights
Brooklyn, New York
Posted by eric at 11:36 AM
January 13, 2012
Nets top off – quietly
NorthJersey.com
by John Brennan
One of the staples of major sports venue construction is the “topping off” ceremony – almost as much so as the “shovels-and-hard-hats” groundbreaking event that formally kicks off construction. I’ve been to plenty of these in the last decade in this metropolitan area – heck, even dormant Meadowlands Xanadu had a topping off ceremony for its parking garage (back in 2005, when that entertainment and retail project was supposed to open a mere two years later).
But for whatever reason, Forest City Ratner celebrated the Barclays Center’s topping off on Thursday with a mere press release.
The developers of the Nets’ new home – scheduled to open in September – invited 500+ workers instead of the media (usually it’s both) to hear CEO Bruce Ratner tout the progress on an arena that was first pitched by Ratner as a concept in 2003.
While the steel frame of the arena is now topped out, the developers still have lots of work to do (keep in mind that the worst-case scenario is a third year at Newark’s Prudential Center in 2012-13).
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Why no press conference for the topping-out ceremony? Maybe to avoid questions about the schedule
Whatever reason, I suspect, is that they didn't want to answer questions about how the schedule has slipped, with a very tight deadline to finish site work before the first Jay-Z concert in September, and what the plan is to ensure that the exterior cladding, produced by closed-and-reopened ASI Limited, would get done.
Brennan points to a cautionary tale across the river:
The Nets will just have to hope that they don’t run into similar deadline challenges to the Devils when they opened the Prudential Center in 2007. The team had to play its first nine games of the 2007-08 season on the road, and when it did open, many of the upper-level seats were suitable only for the sub-200 pound crowd – a dwindling demographic in the U.S. in recent years. The Devils eventually settled a lawsuit with the seating company for undisclosed terms.
NoLandGrab: Meanwhile, the Nets may have held their own "topping off" ceremony on January 6th, when they beat the Toronto Raptors, 97-85, possibly capping their season win total at two.
Posted by eric at 11:53 AM
Barclays Center Holds 'Topping Out' Ceremony
Event marks the complete installation of 10,400-pounds of structural steel at the site.
Park Slope Patch
by Paul Leonard
Construction at Barclays Center hit a major milestone Thursday with the announced "topping out" of structural steel by developer Forest City Ratner.
Members of Ironworkers Local 361 joined CEO Bruce Ratner at the site to celebrate completion of the installation of 10,400-pounds of structural steel, which began in November 2010.
At the event, Ratner vowed to complete Barclays Center in eight months—just in time for the future home of the Nets basketball organization's scheduled Sept. 28 opening date.
NoLandGrab: That's gotta be a typo — 10,400 pounds of steel is the equivalent of three full-size sedans.
"Just one of the boys" photo: Nets Basketball
Posted by eric at 12:15 AM
January 12, 2012
Report: Islanders in talks to play a preseason game in Brooklyn
The Sporting News
The New York Islanders are in talks to host a preseason game next season in Brooklyn at the yet-to-be-finished, future home of the New Jersey Nets, the Barclays Center, according to WFAN (660 AM) New York.
The Islanders lease at Nassau Coliseum ends at the end of the 2014-15 season.
There has been no movement between the team and Nassau County on a new or refurbished arena, especially since a failed Aug. 1 referendum vote that shot down a bid for a new arena on Long Island.
Former Nets owner and Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner has shown an interest in the Islanders moving to Brooklyn when their lease is up.
...The Islanders have also already committed to playing a preseason game against the Edmonton Oilers at Evraz Place in Saskatchewan on Sept. 27, 2012.
NoLandGrab: And given the Barclays Center's tiny hockey capacity and terrible hockey sightlines, it's far more likely that, come the 2015-2016 season, it'll be the Saskatchewan Islanders rather than the Brooklyn Islanders.
Posted by eric at 11:50 PM
January 11, 2012
How many Nets fans from NJ will cross the river (and bring new tax revenues)? "You’re not going to have a lot of people from New Jersey following us," CEO Yormark acknowledged in 2009
Atlantic Yards Report
Despite claims from fellow boosters of the Nets' move to Brooklyn, team CEO Brett Yormark, in a moment of candor, more than two years ago acknowledged that relatively few Nets fans from New Jersey would make the move to Brooklyn.
That won't necessarily affect the bottom line of the team and arena, since new fans from New York surely will buy seats and suites.
But it does diminish the argument for city and state arena subsidies, which were based in part on expectations of new tax benefits to the city and state from out-of-state visitors.
In other words, poaching a team may not be worth what it's cracked up to be.
Posted by eric at 12:39 PM
January 6, 2012
Report Reveals Barclays Center Slightly Behind Schedule
Between September and November, Atlantic Yards construction was behind schedule, and now the completion of the arena has been pushed back a week, to Aug 30.
Park Slope Patch
by Jamie Schuh
While Forest City Ratner doesn’t believe that their steelmaker going out of business will affect the construction time of the Barclays Center, new data shows that construction has been behind schedule for three months, according to Atlantic Yards Report.
AYR says that the completion date of the arena has now been pushed back a week, to August 30, 2012, with site work like landscaping, tree planting and sidewalk installation pushed back a month to September 25, 2012. The blog says that’s just three days before Jay-Z is scheduled to perform an opening night show at the arena.
Posted by eric at 12:41 PM
Forest City avoids the question of how they'll get that exterior steel; local officials in Indiana still baffled by firm's closing
Atlantic Yards Report
So Forest City Ratner yesterday told Crain's New York Business, regarding the closure of steel fabricator ASI Limited, "we don't believe it will affect our construction schedule."
And they told Patch that they don't believe it "will aversely affect the timeline."
Well, that's possible, since the exterior was supposed to be finished by May and presumably there's some flex in the timeline--as long as ASI Limited reopens or (with more difficulty) a new supplier of such custom work can be found.
But that doesn't sound yet like a plan to get that work done. So, until Forest City offers specifics, they don't sound too convincing.
...Surely Forest City Ratner and its allies could muster [new capital for ASI] up in a pinch; a delay in the arena opening threatens an enormous amount of contracted revenue, such as for sponsorships and naming rights.
NoLandGrab: It would be a delicious irony if ASI were able to force Forest City to inject some funds into the company, given the latter's penchant for such hardball tactics as threatening to stop construction of "New York by Gehry" at half its planned height in order to gain union concessions.
Posted by eric at 12:22 PM
Barclays Center developer says show will go on
Despite the recent demise of the company fabricating the weathered-steel skin for the new home of Brooklyn Nets basketball team, the opening is still set for later this year.
Crain's NY Business
by Theresa Agovino
The developer of the Barclays Center arena in downtown Brooklyn says that the year-end demise of the company that is fabricating the weathered steel for the arena's distinctive façade will not result in any construction delays.
...“We are concerned when any of our partners has problems, but we don't believe it will affect our construction schedule,” said MaryAnne Gilmartin, executive vice president of Forest City Ratner, referring to steel fabricator ASI Limited having gone out of business. “We can still continue with construction.”
In a statement, a spokesman for Forest City said the site's construction manager, Hunt, and the bonding company for ASI have developed an action plan. They have already started work on site and have developed several options for on-going fabrication. It didn't specify the options.
Related coverage...
Park Slope Patch, Barclays Center Will 'Open as Scheduled' Despite Steel Snafu: Ratner
According to Atlantic Yards Report, which first broke the story on Tuesday, ASI's apparent demise raised questions as to whether the remaining specialty steel would be delivered and how this might affect Barclays Center's tight construction timeline.
When contacted Thursday, Forest City Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco dismissed those concerns, saying, "We do not think [ASI's closure] will aversely affect the timeline, and the arena is still planned to open as scheduled."
Curbed, It May Be Naked, But Barclays Will Take Stage
Not even the possibility of a calamitous costume snafu will prevent the new Barclays Center arena in Prospect Heights from making its scheduled debut at the start of the 2012-13 NBA season. Or so says Forest City Ratner, after subcontractor ASI Limited shut its doors and went out of businesses in late December.
...Forest City Ratner says that it has developed several ongoing but unspecified alternatives for the fabrication of the necessary steel panels.
NoLandGrab: We've already suggested this alternative, but we'll repeat it in case MaryAnne Gilmartin missed it the first time around.
Posted by eric at 11:58 AM
January 5, 2012
Bollard plans approved by DOT, but only after new technical memo saying sidewalk with effective width in one spot of just two feet would be OK
Atlantic Yards Report
So, what if the sidewalks around the Barclays Center will be smaller than analyzed in the 2006 Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), presenting potential bottlenecks?
It'll be fine, says the Department of Transportation (DOT)--but that required not one but two technical memoranda produced by a consultant to to the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) to say that a narrow sidewalk, with an effective width in one spot near the arena of just 2 feet, would be OK.
So that means installation of 206 security bollards--178 fixed, 28 removable, one foot in diameter--and other street furniture has gone on as planned.
And, I'd bet, we'll see arena-goers stepping into Atlantic Avenue lanes adjacent to the sidewalk.
NoLandGrab: So who's going to be responsible when the first pedestrian fatality occurs?
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Watch, DOT approves plan for arena block bollards after yet another Technical Memo attempts to patch a flawed analysis
Although the plans submitted by FCRC in August showed both temporary and permanent departures from conditions analyzed in the project's Final Environmental Impact Statement, ESDC apparently did not ask its environmental consultant HDR to review the plans until after AYW's initial analysis was published.
What followed is a quintessential Atlantic Yards story. The deadline for public comment, initially scheduled for mid-August when Community Boards do not meet and residents are often away, was extended when it was discovered the incorrect Community Board had been provided the plans for review and approval. The deadline was extended a second time when it was discovered a security wall (the same wall producing the narrowest sidewalk on the arena block) had not been colored red (as new) in the plans. A Technical Memo written by HDR was released to the public less than 24 hours before the revocable consent hearing on October 5th, which acknowledged narrower widths but maintained that the level of service (LOS) of the sidewalks would remain within an acceptable range. Our review of the Technical Memo pointed out shortcomings in its analysis, stating the analysis did not take into account in full the obstructions and shy distances evident in the bollard plans, or changes to pedestrian walking routes on sidewalks.
Posted by eric at 12:45 PM
New report: for three months, arena has been (slightly) behind schedule; completion date for arena nudged back; site work could continue almost to Jay-Z concert date
Atlantic Yards Report
Delays are taking their toll on Atlantic Yards construction, with new data from November indicating--for the first time--that the arena is now behind, and had been slightly behind for three months.
Apparently as a consequence, the substantial completion date of the arena has been pushed back a week to 8/30/12, and the substantial completion date of site work (landscaping, trees, sidewalks, bollards, etc.) pushed back a month to 9/25/12, just three days before Jay-Z is supposed to inaugurate the Barclays Center.
The information comes from the latest Site Observation Report, based on a visit of 11/22/11 and documents made available on 12/20/11, from Merritt & Harris, the real estate consultant to the arena PILOT Bond Trustee.
Cause for worry?
The report, dated 1/4/12, indicates that work seems to be proceeding appropriately. Confoundingly, it does not acknowledge in its text that the arena is behind, as a chart indicates.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Big jump in workers at Atlantic Yards site reported by real estate consultant, but 645 still doesn't match 779 reported by Forest City
As of November, there were 645 workers at the Atlantic Yards arena site and Transit Connection, according latest Site Observation Report, based on a visit of 11/22/11 and documents made available on 12/20/11, from Merritt & Harris, the real estate consultant to the arena PILOT Bond Trustee.
 |
FCR's numbers
In mid-November, Forest City Ratner told the New York Daily News and Patch that there were 779 workers on site as of November 11.
Why the discrepancy? There surely are dozens of additional workers at the railyard--not covered by Merritt & Harris. But 134? That seems questionable, given observations by site neighbors.
Posted by eric at 12:38 PM
‘Mouse’ cleaning for Nets
NY Post
by Rich Calder
Trying to bring a theme-park feel to the team’s new arena in Brooklyn, Nets brass have hired Walt Disney Co.’s training arm to teach the Barclays Center’s employees the secrets of its Magic Kingdom.
“We want to create a magical experience where everyone is treated like a VIP no matter where they sit, and no one does it better than Disney,” Nets/Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark told The Post.
The goal, he added, is “redefining customer experience” for sports and entertainment venues with “unmatched, street-to-seat” service and hospitality.
The team is even considering tapping into so-called 4-D technology Disney theme parks are famous for, so fans can experience some arena attractions not only by sight and sound — but also by touch, taste and smell.
NoLandGrab: Ah, yes, we recognize that scent.
Related coverage...
The L Magazine, Company Making Barclays Center Tiles Goes Broke; Company Making Barclays Center Employees is Disney
The Post is quick to note that [while] none of the arena's 1,500 full- and part-time employees will be donning cartoon character costumes, the Disney Institute will help to design Barlcays Center workers' uniforms. "You don’t wear a uniform — you wear a costume,” noted Disney Institute content specialist Tom D. Thomson. Oh. Sorry?
Runnin' Scared, Brooklyn Nets Set To Go All Disney On Their Employees
When you have to open an arena that seats a crowd of 18,000 skeptical New Yorkers, there's really only one person you can call to give you advice -- dear old Mickey Mouse. The House of Mouse entertains visitors with extreme robotic precision and that's what the Brooklyn Nets are looking to emulate.
Posted by eric at 11:50 AM
January 4, 2012
Prokhorov and Ratner Preparing to Move Semi-pro Team into Naked Arena
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
One has to wonder, what exactly are Bruce Ratner and Mikahil Prokhorov planning on bringing to Brooklyn. A team that can hardly call itself professional and a naked arena?
The New Jersey Nets, once again, are stinking up the joint and the Barclays Center arena is in jeopardy of being facadeless come projected completion in September 2012 now that the custom manufacterer of the rusty panels has gone belly up.
...Will the arena in Brooklyn be ready when the semi-pro Nets are ready to move? That is now a question worthy of a "no comment" from Forest City Ratner.
Related coverage...
Brownstoner, Barclays Center Facade Maker Goes Out of Business
Posted by eric at 11:56 AM
Watch out: Here’s our 12 to watch in 2012
Brooklyn Daily
by Aaron Short
When the big crystal ball falls in Times Square, some of us make resolutions. Others make predictions. But we at Courier Life make lists of the people who we know will make headlines in the next 12 months. So without further ado, here are our 12 to watch in 2012!
...#1:Brooklyn Nets, basketball team
Call ‘em the Brooklyn Nets — finally.
The soon-to-be-renamed New Jersey Nets are moving to the Barclays Center in Prospect Heights this fall after years of hold-ups from opponents of developer Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards mega-project, which includes the arena and 16 planned residential buildings.
The $1-billion Barclays Center rising on Flatbush and Atlantic avenues is scheduled to open in late September, with a series of highly anticipated concerts by Nets part-owner and rap mogul Jay-Z — there’s no doubt that the Marcy Houses native’s shows will fill the 19,000-seat arena. Whether or not the Nets can do the same is anyone’s guess.
NoLandGrab: Can you feel the excitement?
Posted by eric at 11:33 AM
January 3, 2012
Company fabricating metal arena facade shuts down; work was supposed to extend through May; no comment from Forest City at this time
Atlantic Yards Report
Trouble in Ratnerville? The company that makes the façade panels for The World's Most Infamously Ugly Arena™ has suddenly gone all Nets on us belly-up.
The Whitestown, IN-based company that has been fabricating the weathered steel for the Barclays Center facade unexpectedly went out of business last week, raising questions about whether and when the additional steel needed would be delivered, and how the overall project timetable may be affected.
It's unclear how much of the steel has been fabricated and delivered by ASI Limited, but a considerable amount of facade work remains to be done. Some steel has been delivered to and is stored at the southeast block, Block 1129, as shown in the photo above, taken today by Tracy Collins.
A spokesman for developer Forest City Ratner said "we cannot comment at this time." The Empire State Development (ESD), the state agency overseeing Atlantic Yards, said it was a question for Forest City.
ESD at 5:30 pm today issued a two-week Construction Alert (prepared by Forest City) covering work beginning this week; it indicates continued work on the facade, and does not disclose anything about the facade fabricator.
Work extending through May
The Exterior Skin--which likely includes more than the metalwork--is not supposed to be completed until the "Early Finish" date of 5/13/12, according to a report from Merritt & Harris, construction monitor for the arena bond trustee.
NoLandGrab: Not to worry — we got a lead on some replacement parts.
Related coverage...
NY Observer, Tip-Off Tip Over? Barclays Center Facade Maker Goes Out of Business, Possibly Imperiling Opening Day
Replicating the process elsewhere could present a challenge, especially considering the weathering process was already running behind schedule, according to Mr. Oder. Add in the fact that the arena was scheduled to open in only a matter of months, and solving this problem seems as challenging as the Nets making the playoffs.
NLG: Add in to that fact the fact that the Nets are truly awful, and nobody's going to much care if the arena ever opens.
Posted by eric at 10:54 PM
December 16, 2011
Did Bloomberg's Olympic legacy really pay off? Some dissent to the new narrative, and an odd attempt to shoehorn in Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
A new report, How New York City Won the Olympics (also embedded below), argues that most of the benefits of the city's 2012 Olympics bid have been achieved, and without the crushing costs of the event.
It has drawn supportive coverage from the New York Times (though see this cautionary comment) and an enthusiastic New York Daily News editorial, plus coverage in The Bond Buyer.
But it should be taken with significant skepticism. The report is authored by the much-quoted Mitchell L. Moss, Director, Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University.
Moss, an advisor to Mayor Mike Bloomberg's 2001 mayoral campaign, has often defended Bloomberg and the Olympic Plan's chief architect, former Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, so--despite failure to mention that connection in press coverage--that connection must be layered on his academic credentials.
Also, the report includes some strained attempts to attach the Atlantic Yards arena and plan to the Olympics legacy, though that's not backed up by evidence.
Posted by eric at 11:24 AM
December 15, 2011
David Burke in Talks to Bring Mini-Food-Trucks to Barclays Center
Grub Street New York
by Beth Landman
Lots of big-name chefs are consulting on food gigs at Madison Square Garden, and now David Burke tells us he's close to signing a deal with the forthcoming Barclays Center in Brooklyn. "We have been in discussions, and we just have some things to iron out,'' Burke says. He explains that unlike his consulting situation with Bowlmor, this will me more hands-on: "I have an idea for baby mobile food trucks — gate 1A could be serving sliders at one point during a game, then gate 2B would have cupcakes."
He says he'd use social media or in-stadium announcements to let people know what food is being served at any given time: "We would have a few trucks, and they would drive by with items until they sell out." He adds, "The food might also be related to the team playing, like Philadelphia cheesesteaks.''
NoLandGrab: Right, because fans always want to celebrate the opposing team by eating their food. Next thing you know, they'll be giving away reversible jerseys with the visiting team's star on the other side.
Posted by eric at 10:50 AM
December 13, 2011
Barclays Center: Then, Now and In-Between
A photo document of construction at the site from October 2010 to December 2011.
Park Slope Patch
by Paul Leonard
Patch has a collection of photos "documenting the pace of construction at the Barclays Center site from Oct. 2010 to Dec. 2011."
Posted by eric at 11:32 PM
December 6, 2011
Andrea Bocelli, and the Brooklyn Academy
l'Espresso
by Andrea Visconti
The Google translation leaves a bit to be desired, but absolutely nails one aspect of the story (look for our hint).
Andrea Bocelli for his only concert in New York in 2012 and straight stitch snubs Manhattan to Brooklyn instead. Do not sing at Madison Square Garden as he did many times in the past but chose instead the new Barclays Center.
Beyond the fact that a performance in Brooklyn instead of Manhattan is a sign of how New York is changing I would not have taken had I not seen this news just this week the film "Battle for Brooklyn." This is a new documentary that is currently in the pipeline for the Oscars. It is part of the finalists in the preselection for the nomination.
The theme of "Battle for Brooklyn" is precisely the battle lasted seven years to try to block the construction of the Barclays Center. A battle between a major real estate speculator and a community of about a thousand people who are forced statre with good (money) or bad (the legal process) to clear the area and make room for a huge multi-purpose project.
Posted by eric at 11:45 AM
December 5, 2011
Brooklyn ‘lands one’
Tenor picks new arena over MSG
NY Post
by Rich Calder
 |
With this, our final NoLandGrab post, we would like to thank all of our readers for their loyalty during the past eight years. But now that the Barclays Center will indeed become the 18,000-seat opera house that we've always hoped it would (added bonus: also future home to the world's most chichi equestrian event), we don't see the point in fighting it any longer.
Bravo, Bruce Ratner!
The World’s Most Famous Arena is getting a run for its money.
Renowned Italian classical vocalist Andrea Bocelli will shun Madison Square Garden next holiday season to perform instead at the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn, The Post has learned.
“It’s always a pleasure for me to play in New York, but I’m particularly excited to perform in Brooklyn for what will be my only 2012 performance in the city that has given me such affection,” Bocelli, known as “The Fourth Tenor,” said yesterday in a statement.
Bocelli had played nine straight holiday shows at the Garden, but has booked Dec. 5, 2012, at the Barclays Center — becoming the biggest name yet to be lured away from MSG to the future home of the NBA’s Nets.
Posted by eric at 11:33 AM
December 4, 2011
Horse show at arena brings complications; in Washington, DC, they closed city streets
Atlantic Yards Report
Atlantic Yards Watch offers a follow-up on some recent news, Gucci horse competition coming to Barclays, but where will the horses go?, where we learned that 70 to 80 horses would be stabled inside the building, with more than 200 horses in tenets nearby.
Writes Danae Oratowski:
The Paris Gucci Masters is held at the Salon de Cheval, a dedicated horse show facility that includes warm-up rings and trailer parking in addition to stables and show rings. Instead, the Barclays event will resemble the International Horse Show at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., which needed closed three city blocks around the arena this October.
In addition to outdoor stables, there’s likely to be a need for an outdoor warm up ring, since the backstage areas of the Barclays center may not be large enough. There’s also the small matter of a few hundred horse trailers that will arrive and unload (most likely in the middle of the night to avoid traffic).A commenter on my earlier piece had written:
Temporary stalls can be set up anywhere. The Washington Int'l is held in the Verizon Center, stalls and warmup rings are in a nearby parking garage.
Closed streets in Washington
Actually, no. WTOP reported 10/26/11, "We noticed that 6th Street NW and F Street have been blocked around the Verizon Center." The Washington Post reported 10/24/11 that "F Street between Fifth and Seventh, and Sixth Street between F and G will be closed for the week to house temporary stalls for horses."
In a 3/15/11 statement, the Washington International Horse Show announced a three-year deal with Verizon Center to extend its run at the venue through 2013:
"We are thrilled to remain at Verizon Center and continue this great Washington tradition. Verizon Center has been home to WIHS for 12 years, and while there are complexities in producing an urban horse show with shipping horses in and out of the city and closing city streets to create stables, it also makes us one of the most exciting horse shows in the country," said Anthony F. Hitchcock, chief operating officer of WIHS.
(Emphasis added)
And in Brooklyn?
Note that the Verizon Center, unlike the Barclays Center, does not directly border a residential neighborhood.
In Brooklyn, I'd bet we see Sixth Avenue closed outside the arena, and maybe parts of Dean and Pacific Street. But if anyone official knows differently, please let me know. Print
Related coverage...
Atlanltic Yards Watch, Gucci horse competition coming to Barclays, but where will the horses go?
Posted by steve at 11:02 PM
No Land Grab: The Rip Van Winkle Edition
Here are two items filled with stale information.
Architectism, Atlantic Yards: B2 Bklyn Building by SHoP Architects
Here's an outdated description of the Atlantic Yards project that even the developer doesn't use any more. There's an added bonus of the invocation of starchitect Frank Gehry even though he was thrown off the project years ago as a result of "value engineering".
The Atlantic Yards area is in a current development,striving to be a residential zone.The project wants to redevelop 22 acres of Downtown Brooklyn and the aimed areas are: Flatbush Ave, Fourth Ave, Vanderbuilt Ave and Dean St.The initiators of this project were Forest City Ratner Companies.
Frank Gehry designed the plan and this is how he divided the buildings: 6 million square feet were reserved for the residential space, Barclays Center and an entertainment area while 247,000 square feet are for retail purposes,336,000 square feet are for office spaces and 8 acres are spared for an open space.
New York Islanders Adrift, Barclays Center Still Short of Goal
"Value engineering" of the Nets arena rendered it too small to accommodate professional hockey, but fanciful discussion persists.
The Barclays Center management set a goal of 220 events for its opening year and they are still 50 events short. The fact that Brooklyn still needs to fill events helps the Islanders leverage when dealing with the Barclays Center. This creates a need for the Islanders 41 home games to fill the void for the opening season and future ones as well.
Posted by steve at 10:34 PM
Andrea Boccelli Will Sing At Barclays Center Instead Of MSG
Gothamist
Following in the footsteps of Jay-Z, famous Italian tenor Andrea Boccelli will sing at the Barclays Center next year. And the Post notes it's quite the coup for the under-construction arena, since Boccelli had been performing his annual holiday show at Madison Square Garden.
Posted by steve at 10:29 PM
December 1, 2011
Elite show-jumping competition coming to Barclays Center in 2013, with 200 horses stabled in tents "just outside" (where?)
Atlantic Yards Report
"[J]ust outside" suggests space in the rather small footprints of the apartment towers to be built adjacent to the arena.
Or maybe they'll use the small lot just east of Sixth Avenue on Dean Street.
Or will they close down the plaza that's supposed to be a public amenity?
Related coverage...
Gothamist, Elite Horse Competition Will Slum It In Brooklyn
You know what "edgy" Brooklyn needs? Rich people who ride pretty horses at exclusive champagne-fueled events. Fortunately, the Gucci Masters horse-jumping competition is coming to the Barclays Center in 2013, and organizers are using the opportunity to trot out as many trite Brooklyn cliches they can think of.
Crain's NY Business, Brooklyn jumps ahead
Posted by eric at 1:53 PM
The Horses Will Jump in Brooklyn
The Wall Street Journal
by Sophia Hollander
The Gucci Masters is to Roger Green's hypothetical "18,000-seat opera house" as the hypothetical opera house is to monster trucks or professional wrestling.
At the 2011 Gucci Masters, a prestigious show-jumping event that begins in Paris this weekend, spectators can enjoy free on-site manicurists and hair stylists, a Champagne bar and a private pony paddock for children.
It's typical glamour for a sport that has attracted celebrity offspring such as Georgina Bloomberg, daughter of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Jessica Springsteen, daughter of Bruce. Hong Kong is also part of the show-jumping series, and organizers are now planning to add a third site.
They've picked Brooklyn.
The Barclays Center will host the new elite show-jumping competition in 2013, drawing the world's top 30 riders to compete for $1 million in prize money, officials were scheduled to announce on Thursday in Paris.
...[Ashley Herman-Griffin, project manager for the New York Masters] added, show jumping remains a spectacle predicated on horses that can cost up to 10 million euros each, world-class chefs, and extravagant production values. The New York event will cost $6 million to produce, including prize money, and will be broadcast to a global audience estimated at 550 million households, she said. "It's not a hipster event," she said.
NoLandGrab: Don't say we didn't warn you that something like this could happen.
Related coverage...
Park Slope Patch, Barclays Will Host Elite Show-Jumping Event
Today, the Wall Street Journal reports that the arena will also be home to the 2013 New York Masters, an elite show-jumping competition that’s part ponies, part champagne, caviar and celebrities. The event will pit the world's top 30 riders against each other (in the most civilized way possible) for a $1 million prize.
...The Journal says that the event will cost $6 million to produce, with around 80 horses stabled inside the arena, and more than 200 in tents outside.
NLG: 200 horses in tents "outside?" In the "temporary surface riding stables," perhaps?
Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Posted by eric at 12:35 PM
PHOTOS: The Barclays Center Has Risen
A monthly photo essay documenting the construction of the Barclays Center, which the Brooklyn Nets will soon call home.
Park Slope Patch
by Will Yakowicz
Piece by piece and month by month, the Barclays Center has grown. Now, with the frame complete and the glass walls filling in, the arena is looking like the soon-to-be home of the Brooklyn Nets.
The enormous footprint lies within the intersection of Flatbush, Atlantic,
FifthSixth [NLG: Thanks to Bruce Ratner, Fifth Avenue no longer exists northeast of Flatbush] and Fourth avenues.
NoLandGrab: The fire hydrant at left indicates just how close the arena will be to Flatbush Avenue. That shouldn't be a problem, right?
Posted by eric at 10:42 AM
November 30, 2011
Meet The Women Behind The Brooklyn Nets
Forbes
Deep inside the steel skeleton of the soon-to-be Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY, drills are whirring, hammers striking and cranes excavating. The air is dusty and the ground littered with piles of wires, metal beams and loose hardware. Despite her suit dress and open-toed heels, an unconcerned MaryAnne Gilmartin, the arena’s lead developer, simply steps around the debris. In just 10 months, these gaping bones will welcome the NBA’s New Jersey Nets to their new home—as the Brooklyn Nets—thanks to two powerful women working vigorously behind the scenes.
If real estate mogul Bruce Ratner and Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov are the faces of the New York-bound basketball franchise, Gilmartin and Irina Pavlova are the feet on the ground, clearing the way. As EVP of Forest City Ratner Companies, Gilmartin manages development of the near $1 billion arena, which anchors the larger $4.9 billion, 22-acre Atlantic Yards project in the heart of Brooklyn. Pavlova represents the interests of Prokhorov, the minority owner of the arena and majority owner of the Nets, its major tenant.
We'll leave it to Atlantic Yards Report to dissect Gilmartin's fantasy version of events. Here's some of the bit on Pavlova.
Spearheading the excitement over the 18,000-seat arena, Pavlova, 41, gets a live video feed of construction on her desktop and gushes that she cheers so hard at Nets’ home games she loses her voice. The Russian-American has dual citizenship, speaks five languages (with varying levels of fluency) and has worked all over the world. She started her career at Prudential in New York, and in 2005 launched the Moscow office of Google. In 2010, the chief executive of Onexim, Prokhorov’s company, told Pavlova over a casual dinner about a little deal with an American team, and asked if she’d be interested in “keeping an eye on things” in the States. “I don’t know a thing about basketball,” she said, but soon agreed.
Which would explain why she shouts herself hoarse at Nets' games.
And she learned quick. “It took me a few months to get my hands around the business and get comfortable with how things work,” Pavlova says with a subtle accent. “I’ve learned it’s tickets, sponsorships and suite sales. It’s not rocket science.”
Which would explain how the Nets' CEO qualifies as a "Yormarketing genius."
Posted by eric at 11:57 AM
November 29, 2011
Notre Dame finds pre-Big East milepost at Gonzaga
Chicago Tribune
by Brian Hamilton
In 2013-14, there is one headline event thus far: A preseason tournament that features three games at home for the Irish ... and then a glamor date against Kentucky at the sparkling new Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.
NoLandGrab: What?! We must've missed the press event featuring Brett Yormark, Bruce Ratner, John Calipari and the Pope.
Posted by eric at 10:50 AM
November 28, 2011
So, how much did unions give up to get the Barclays Center going?
Atlantic Yards Report
On Local 157 blogspot, "Where New York City District Council Carpenters Communicate, Connect and Stay Informed!" there's an intriguing comment posted in response to a reposting of Daily News columnist Denis Hamill's valentine to Forest City Ratner's Bob Sanna and the union workers building the arena.
Wrote the anonymous commenter:
How about some free tickets for the men who took the hit on the PLA's [Project Labor Agreements] to make it happen.
Time to have a Trades Night out when the season starts next year. You can go by the Certified Payroll records on file with the CM [Construction Manager] & Project Owner.
C'mon - set it up. Let's see if Ratner appreciates the effort and steps up
Forest City Ratner stopped construction of the Beekman Tower (aka 8 Spruce Street) to negotiate a PLA.
I'm not sure if Forest City simply took advantage of an existing general PLA or negotiated one specifically for the arena. But it sure seems that the developer shaved savings on labor costs.
NoLandGrab: Seeing how giving away unsold seats — of which there are likely to be plenty — won't cost Ratner a dime (and will generate otherwise-foregone concession revenue, to boot), this commenter will surely get his wish.
Posted by eric at 11:51 AM
November 27, 2011
Denis Hamill tells why there is so much union pride in building Barclays Center in Brooklyn
Daily News
The reason for building Atlantic Yards isn't to benefit billionaire developer Bruce Ratner. No, we're doing this for the kids. It's funny how all the tangible benefits go to Ratner.
As a sports-crazed kid who grew up 11/2 miles from here, I know this new arena will have a profound effect on Brooklyn kids, their parents and new immigrants who will unite behind a true home team, the way the Brooklyn Dodgers made my immigrant father more of a true American than his citizenship papers did.
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy, Denis Hamill's Love Letter to Forest City Ratner's Very Own NIMBY Bob Sanna"
Denis Hamill's Daily News column, "Denis Hamill tells why there is so much union pride in building Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Construction boss Bob Sanna is behind the Nets new basketball arena," is a really sweet love letter to Forest City Ratner's head of construction Bob Sanna who is overseeing the Atlantic Yards construction.
Hamill asks Sanna, "What was the first thing he had to do to erect this 18,000 seat arena?" Hamill allows Sanna to blithely respond, without challenge, "Demolish 52 buildings. We did that in sections, starting at Atlantic Ave, as politics played out and tenants vacated. Then we start carving away at the land."
Spoken like a true tin pot dictator. Politics didn't "play out," it was a fixed political deal. And tenants weren't "vacated," they were removed by eminent domain condemnation.
Atlantic Yards Report, Daily News columnist Denis Hamill rhapsodizes about arena construction
Daily News columnist Denis Hamill, who thinks the Brooklyn Nets can give Brooklyn a soul and who swallows Forest City Ratner promotional spin, today salutes Forest City's head of construction, Bob Sanna, "Park Slope native, also the son of a Local 3 worker."
The online headline: Denis Hamill tells why there is so much union pride in building Barclays Center in Brooklyn: Construction boss Bob Sanna is behind the Nets new basketball arena.
Sanna, to Hamill, credits developer Bruce Ratner for having the event level level "25 feet below grade," and describes the role of union workers:
“Then comes a parade of 40 trades,” Sanna says. “Local 20 guys pour concrete on the 250 steel footings, held together with metal straps, making foundation walls, forming a big fat concrete pontoon if you will, that keeps our main foundation from penetrating into the ground. The whole arena sits on this structure.”
...Under which will perform an urban symphony of plumbers, steamfitters, painters, carpenters, electricians and all the rest of the 40 trades that Brooklyn-born Bob Sanna oversees in the construction of the first major professional sports venue in Brooklyn in 55 years.
OK, it's parade, or a symphony, but shouldn't Hamill have mentioned Forest City's hardball treatment of construction unions regarding its modular plans? Or maybe that Sanna's statement that "politics played out" to clear the site is a euphemism (as per DDDB) for a political fix.
Or maybe that Sanna's not a Brooklyn resident any more, but is fiercely defending his New Jersey home town from... overdevelopment.
Posted by steve at 11:00 PM
November 25, 2011
With Roof Half Up, a View Inside
NetsDaily
 |
Billy King, prohibited from talking about players or the lockout or anything much else, has taken to distributing the latest pictures of the Barclays Center, tweeting this image from inside the arena Wednesday, the first since the roof paneling started going up early this month.
The arena should be fully enclosed in January and permanent power from ConEd will be turned out next week. Workers continue to work double and triple shifts and weekends to assure "schedule maintenance", that is completion by late August of next year and a grand opening of September 28 (which also just happens to be Brett Yormark's 45th birthday).
Meanwhile, Bruce Ratner has reached a deal with union leaders to permit him to build the first of 16 modular apartment buildings at Atlantic Yards.
NoLandGrab: If NetsDaily was written by real journalists rather than fans, they'd know that Bruce Ratner has reached no such deal. That conclusory tidbit is from an erroneous Brooklyn Paper report, but NetsDaily has never been long on facts.
Posted by eric at 1:00 PM
November 17, 2011
How the arena promoters market (and twist) GQ's designation of Brooklyn as "the Coolest City on the Planet"
Atlantic Yards Report
Forest City Ratner, which brought to Brooklyn Chuck E. Cheese and Buffalo Wild Wings, is ever ready to ride on the slipstream of cool created by independent entrepreneurs.
Forbes reported yesterday on a press conference announcing college hoops at the Barclays Center:
[Developer Bruce] Ratner noted that someone commented to him recently that Brooklyn was the coolest place on the planet. “Not that you’d know it looking at me,” the 66-year-old real estate developer joked.
Um, that wasn't just a "comment," it was a GQ article about non-corporate restaurants. But there's no limit to exploiting the Brooklyn brand--or, as I described it last year at the arena groundbreaking, "the endless marketing and unbearable banality of borough iconograpy."
Posted by eric at 12:28 PM
The Barclays Center Classic: not just Kentucky but also LIU
Atlantic Yards Report
While the headline on the AP article was Barclays hoops classic gets Kentucky vs. Maryland, focusing on the two college basketball powers, don't forget the undercard: Long Island University vs. Morehead State University.
And that, as I suggested in March, helps explain the LIU provost's hyperbolic support for Atlantic Yards:
I know that the students and faculty of LIU-Brooklyn firmly believe that the important public benefits that will result from the Project will outweigh any adverse impacts of extended construction on our neighborhoods.
According to the promotional article on the Nets' web site, the Kentucky-Maryland game will be on ESPN. The LIU game? Unclear. They had a good year last year, but this gives them another level of exposure.
You can't have a major game without sponsorship, right? So the first "classic"--definition: "a work of enduring excellence" or a "traditional event"--will be presented by Sheets caffeinated energy strips.
Posted by eric at 11:45 AM
Yormark, Calipari Announce Barclays Center Classic
Nets Basketball Press Release
Yesterday's announcement that the University of Kentucky and the University of Maryland would play the inaugural NCAA basketball game at the Barclays Center of Brooklyn® featured a "despicable, shameless used car salesman — and the surprise is that's not a reference to Bruce Ratner or Brett Yormark!
Flanked by Kentucky coach John Calipari and Maryland athletic director Kevin Anderson, on what Barclays Center developer Bruce Ratner called “another good day” despite dreary weather, Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark announced Wednesday that the under-construction arena would tip off its “Brooklyn HOOPS” college sports franchise with the Barclays Center Classic, presented by Sheets Brand Energy Strips, on November 9, 2012.
NoLandGrab: "Sheets Brand Energy Strips?" Seriously?
Posted by eric at 11:30 AM
November 16, 2011
College hoops powerhouses Kentucky and Maryland set to tip off at Brooklyn’s new Barclays Center arena
John Calipari and Wildcats will open new Nets arena
NY Daily News
by Erin Durkin
Give the people (and the media) hoops and circuses...
 |
Two powerhouse college hoops teams are set to christen the court when Brooklyn’s new Barclays Center arena opens next fall.
The University of Kentucky Wildcats and the University of Maryland Terrapins will play the first college basketball game at the arena in a Nov. 9, 2012, doubleheader, officials said.
Kentucky coach John Calipari will announce the games at the Barclays Center Showroom Wednesday.
...On Tuesday at Brooklyn Borough Hall plaza, the Nets continued their season ticket sales campaign with the unveiling of a 40-foot trailer dubbed “The Experience” — equipped with a basketball hoop, video game consoles, seats from the arena and a rooftop stage.
...The efforts to promote the new arena came after a group of construction workers sued Barclays Center developer Bruce Ratner — charging that Ratner promised construction jobs at the arena site to them and other local residents, but then reneged.
Posted by eric at 11:36 AM
November 14, 2011
Coach Cal Headlines Barclays Center Press Conference
Nation of Blue
Wow, they sure are busy cranking out non-news events this week. Do they really need a press conference to announce an early-season college basketball game between two teams with no local interest? How slow are ticket sales?
Kentucky will open the Barclays Center next season vs Maryland and Coach Cal will headline the press conference announcing the event.
Posted by eric at 9:05 PM
Press conference Tuesday afternoon at Borough Hall: new mobile 'EXPERIENCE'
Atlantic Yards Report
 |
A press release from the Nets, headlined Barclays Center and Nets Basketball to unveil new mobile 'EXPERIENCE' on plaza at Brooklyn Borough Hall: Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, NETS General Manager Billy King, And NETS Head Coach Avery Johnson to Attend Event...
Posted by eric at 9:02 PM
Nets Take Show(room) on the Road
NetsDaily
Because the Barclays Center hasn't generated enough traffic already...
For years, the Nets have been bringing high-end customers to their Barclays Center showroom atop Bruce Ratner's New York Times building. There, the prospects are treated to a mock-up of a suite, complete with virtual views of the arena from any seat. Now, the Nets are taking their show(room) on the road.
They've have outfitted a 40-foot trailer to replicate the showroom, complete with two flat screen monitors that can project the virtual views, as well as hardwood floors, a hoop that can be set up outside, a rooftop deejay both and even a small Nets store ...of sorts. Billy King and Boro President Marty Markowitz will unveil the "Experience" Tuesday at Borough Hall. One reason for a mobile marketing tool: the Nets are about to start marketing loge seat packages to small businesses.
NoLandGrab: Given tepid sales of suites and tickets, this isn't surprising. Nor will we be surprised when Brett Yormark rings our doorbell, offering a deeply discounted ticket package.
Posted by eric at 10:28 AM
November 6, 2011
Movers & Shakers: Gregg Pasquarelli of SHop Architects
Crain's New York
By Theresa Agovino
The new Nets Arena was designed by Ellerbe Becket. A facade was needed to hide that the arena's design is a copy of the Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. SHoP Architects designed the facade. This article features Gregg Pasquarelli, founder of SHoP Architects,
You were the third firm brought in to work on the Barclays Center, and you had to fix the design of the second firm. What was that like?
It was something we didn't go into lightly. We took the lead on the design. I'm sure at first it was difficult for everyone, but we really did work together well.
Were you a Nets fan?
I am now. As a Bronx boy, I was a Yankees, Rangers, Giants, Knicks fan. I'll still go to Knicks games.
How important is sustainability to what you design?
It's very important, but it has to go beyond just sustainable bling like solar panels. I think the most sustainable thing we can do as designers is to build buildings that people love. That way, we are not tearing them down every 20 or 30 years.
NoLandGrab: Brooklynites aren't likely to love an arena wedged into one of the borough's busiest intersections.
Posted by steve at 5:01 PM
November 4, 2011
PHOTOS: The Barclays Center Comes Together
A monthly photo essay documenting the construction of the Barclays Center, which the Brooklyn Nets will soon call home.
Park Slope Patch
by Georgia Kral
The Barclays Center looms over the busy Brooklyn intersection of Flatbush, Atlantic, Fifth and even Fourth avenues. lt has been getting bigger and bigger with each month, and it finally looks like an (almost) complete structure.
Photo: Georgia Kral/Patch
Posted by eric at 11:54 AM
October 17, 2011
B is for Barclays
Brooklyn Spoke
Brooklyn Spoke's Doug Gordon snapped this photo yesterday.
 |
I spotted this during a ride up to Prospect Heights on Sunday. It’s the B for the Barclays Center façade at a staging area on the corner of Dean Street and Carlton Avenue.
Posted by eric at 11:05 AM
September 30, 2011
"Jay-Z Rocks the House"? Brooklyn Paper stays sunny side up
Atlantic Yards Report
The Brooklyn Paper, ever eager to boost Atlantic Yards, this week informs us that "JAY-Z ROCKS THE HOUSE."
Well, maybe he will when he plays the Barlcays Center next year, but his promotional presentation on 9/26/11 lasted less than two minutes, and was, in the words of a Times hoops writer, "brief and anticlimactic."
I called it "an anticlimax for news," too.
Of course the Brooklyn Paper didn't bother to report on the curious statements made by developer Bruce Ratner or Borough President Marty Markowitz.
...Or the meeting Empire State Development CEO Kenneth Adams had that same night with Brooklyn elected officials.
Or the glaring discrepancy between the rules that trucks at the Atlantic Yards site are supposed to follow and their actual performance.
Posted by eric at 11:48 AM
September 28, 2011
Beyond the Hype of Jay-Z's Brooklyn Nets Announcement
Huffington Post
By Norman Oder
Fueled by hype that began last Friday -- "Cultural Icon Shawn 'Jay-Z' Carter" would make a "significant announcements" regarding the Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn and the "borough's future NBA team," the media turned out in droves Monday for a heavily-managed press conference in Brooklyn across from the under-construction arena.
...
But there were reasons to look deeper. Malcolm Gladwell, in a Grantland essay on the NBA lockout coincidentally published the same day, pointed to the enormous profit the team and arena owners -- Mikhail Prokhorov and Bruce Ratner, mainly -- stand to make.
Michael Galinsky, co-director of the documentary Battle for Brooklyn, which portrays the not-so-seemly machinations behind the project, stood outside the event trying to get the press to recognize that the developer's promises of jobs and housing have come to little.
He got few takers, but those of us listening to developer Ratner noticed that, while making vague promises of jobs at Atlantic Yards -- where 16 promised towers have yet to be built -- he proudly offered statistics about jobs in the malls nearby he developed -- projects completely unrelated to Atlantic Yards.
Posted by steve at 10:50 AM
September 27, 2011
2011 Jay-Z media event
threecee via flickr
September 26, 2011
Atlantic Terminal Mall
Atlantic Avenue at Fort Greene Place
Fort Greene, New York
Posted by eric at 12:42 PM
The Brooklyn Nets and The Barf: No News Is...No News
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Not everyone buys the hype, however.
We'll happily let others cover today's non-news news event. That would be the Atlantic Interminable Mall press get-together with "Cultural Icon Shawn 'Jay-Z' Carter," eminent domain abuse icon Bruce Ratner, insomnia icon Brett Yormark and hearty handshake and obsolescence icon Marty Markowitz, where the hip hop star announced that after putting their heads together they've decided that the New Jersey Nets would become the...Brooklyn Nets, and that he'd do a few shows at the arena when it opens. (How is it news that the .3% owner of the team will perform in the team's new home? It would be news if he didn't.)
...We're also betting that there won't ever be a big press event to announce the fulfillment of 10,000 jobs or 2,250 "affordable" housing units.
Related coverage...
'An I Heard 'Em Say, Sure Jay-Z’s Rich, But He’s Still a Pawn for Really, Really Rich Dudes
And it's not just the usual suspects who aren't buying it.
First, while many are celebrating the arrival of the Nets, they forget that an entire community was essentially evicted to make way for the stadium and Atlantic Yards complex using some very sketchy eminent domain law. Simply put, a lot of every rich and powerful people, lead by real estate developer Bruce Ranter, got together, realized they could make a shit ton of money and tossed out everyone already living there to make room.
Gladwell’s piece is largely about the economics behind the NBA lockout – it’s ridiculous for teams like the Nets to claim they’re losing money and blame players when they’re involved in multi-billion dollar real estate deals – but what really caught my eye was this brief mention of Hova. Here’s Gladwell on Bruce Ratner’s plan to use the Nets, and Jay-Z, to procure some rack on racks on racks:
“Ratner knew this would not be easy. The 14 acres he wanted to raze was a perfectly functional neighborhood, inhabited by taxpaying businesses and homeowners. He needed a political halo, and Ratner’s genius was in understanding how beautifully the Nets could serve that purpose. The minute basketball was involved, Brooklyn’s favorite son — Jay-Z — signed up as a part-owner and full-time booster.”
What really struck me about that paragraph is that while the hip-hop sphere tends to treat Jay-Z like the most powerful man on Earth, it’s a reminder that he’s really just the most powerful man in hip-hop, which really isn’t that powerful. Although a completely willing, and extraordinarily well-payed pawn, Jay’s essentially being used as a pawn here by real estate moguls, Russian billionaires and New York politicians with more money and power than Jay could ever dream of.
Posted by eric at 12:24 PM
More Non-News About the Brooklyn (Same-Old) Nets and Jay-Z
The Brooklyn Paper, Jay-Z confirms that he’ll christen the Barclays Center
Park Slope Patch, Jay-Z To Kick Off Barclays Center Opening In 2012
The Wall Street Journal, Jay-Z Wants You to Meet the Brooklyn Nets
NY1, Rapper Jay-Z Announces Barclays Concerts
NY Post, Jay-Z says team to be renamed Brooklyn Nets
And we saved the best for last. OMG!
NY Post, Jay-Z will design jersey for new-look Brooklyn Nets
He’s not only part-owner of the soon-to-be Brooklyn Nets — he’s helping design their uniforms, too.
Posted by eric at 11:47 AM
September 26, 2011
NoLandGrab Non-News News Round-up
We'd like to take this moment to announce that NoLandGrab will from this point forward be known as NoLandGrab.
In other non-news, the Nets this morning held a big press event to announce that they are still called the Nets.
Atlantic Yards Report, The Jay-Z media event: an anticlimax for news (Brooklyn Nets, concert), but a chance for TV coverage; also, Ratner, Markowitz make some curious claims
Norman Oder rounds up some of the breathless non-news coverage, featuring some video clips that, honestly, we can't bring ourselves to tie up our bandwidth with (try saying that three times fast).
The media event this morning featuring "cultural icon" Jay-Z was a bit of an anticlimax--there was little response from the generally supportive crowd when Mr. Carter announced that the team would be called the Brooklyn Nets and that he'd open the Barclays Center arena with a concert--actually a couple (though he didn't say eight, as the New York Daily News reported).
After all, in well-planned exclusives accepted by the compliant tabloids, the Daily News placed the Jay-Z opening news on page 4 and the New York Post placed its news--that the team hopes "to steal Knick fans from lower Manhattan"--on page 3.
Aimed at TV
But the event today was aimed at TV, with the Barclays Center rising in the background. There were exclusive interviews first on Fox 5, including with Jay-Z.
Then, across the street at a tent pitched in front of the Atlantic Terminal Mall, the press conference featured fairly brief words from Nets CEO Brett Yormark, Forest City Ratner CEO Bruce Ratner, and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz before Jay-Z spoke briefly.
There were no other elected officials in attendance, but representatives from at least six of the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement signatories were present.
NY Observer, Jay-Z Announces “Brooklyn Nets” Title, Tells Everyone To Stop Watching Knicks Games
The Wall Street Journal, So Long, New Jersey. Hello, Brooklyn Nets.
NYTimes.com, Jay-Z Makes ‘Brooklyn Nets’ Name Official
The Brooklyn Paper, Call them the ‘Brooklyn Nets’
Crain's NY Business, Brooklyn Nets and Jay-Z will christen new arena
Posted by eric at 2:33 PM
Getting the arena done in time for Jay-Z means they're cutting corners
Atlantic Yards Report
As the hoopla crests for Jay-Z's announcement this morning of Barclays Center inaugural activities, let's remember:
- The state understated the toll on the community.
- Noise overnight likely has affected more people than predicted.
- Truckers idling in a residential neighborhood ignore site and city rules.
Posted by eric at 8:48 AM
Moving the goalposts: Will the Barclays Center open in "the summer of 2012"? Was the first tower due "by the end of the year"?
Atlantic Yards Report
With an announcement expected today of a Jay-Z concert series (and local marketing campaign) to launch the Barclays Center, does that mean the arena will open in "the summer of 2012," as once promised?
It depends on what the word "open" means.
The fall of 2012 begins on 9/22/12. The "grand opening"--presumably with that Jay-Z concert--has long been promised as 9/28/12, nearly a week later.
However, that "grand opening" is to be preceded by "public events and tours," during which the arena would be "open."
Posted by eric at 8:45 AM
Jay-Z to push Knicks fans to switch to supporting Nets
NY Post
by Rich Calder
Jay-Z is unleashing a full-court press for his Brooklyn-bound Nets -- hoping to steal Knick fans from lower Manhattan.
The hip-hop superstar and part-owner of the Nets is set to tip off a major marketing campaign today aimed at enticing fans to bench the Knicks and score season tickets for his Prospect Heights hoopsters.
The soon-to-be-former New Jersey Nets dribble over to the Barclays Center next fall, and Jay-Z is expected to reveal the team’s “new name” this morning, sources told The Post.
The fresh hoops handle could be as simple as a crossover from “New Jersey Nets” to “Brooklyn Nets” or be a complete overhaul for the founding ABA club originally named the New York Americans.
...Net CEO Brett Yormark said: “Jay-Z will be the face of the team’s fourth-quarter campaign” to sell 4,400 “All-Access” premium seats at the rapidly rising 18,000-seat arena.
Their game plan is set to target Wall Streeters and residents of upscale neighborhoods like TriBeCa and SoHo.
The turf war will be fought with billboards, 150 taxi tops, 60 telephone kiosks and a whopping 250,000 coffee cups to be distributed to local stores.
“We’ll be blanketing Wall Street with the coffee cups,” said Yormark.
Posted by eric at 8:38 AM
Jay-Z plans eight-concert series in hometown for Brooklyn Nets arena opening in 2012
NY Daily News
by Erin Durkin
Rap mogul Jay-Z will headline a series of concerts to open Brooklyn's new Nets arena next fall - and will make it official Monday: The team will be named for his hometown.
The superstar, who owns a small piece of the soon-to-be renamed Brooklyn Nets, will perform at eight concerts to celebrate the grand opening of the arena - where all-access passes are going for up to $15,400 a season.
Jay-Z likely will be joined by his wife, Beyoncé - who by then will have given birth to the couple's first child - at one of the shows, and will bring on a series of other performers, sources said.
Jay-Z will appear with developer Bruce Ratner and Borough President Marty Markowitz to reveal details of the shows Monday at the Prospect Heights construction site.
Posted by eric at 8:34 AM
Beyond Jay-Z's inaugural concert series: opportunities for mutual branding at the Barclays Center
Atlantic Yards Report
Nearly two weeks ago, I suggested (via the fanciful video below) that, to enhance Jay-Z's expected Barclays Center debut, arena backers might scheme to ensure that his wife Beyoncé Knowles does a guest spot--and brings out their new baby.
Well, at a press conference today, we'll learn that Jay-Z will in fact inaugurate the arena in September 2012. And, according to the Daily News, Beyoncé will do a guest spot in an eight-concert series.
The New York Post, handed a different exclusive, reports that the team's new name (Brooklyn Nets, presumably) will be announced, as well will a marketing campaign aimed at Lower Manhattan.
Posted by eric at 8:27 AM
September 23, 2011
"Cultural icon" Jay-Z to "make significant announcement" Monday regarding arena and team
Atlantic Yards Report
[Yawn.]
The NBA pre-season is already delayed by a labor impasse, and there's talk of losses to the regular season, but the Nets can still gin up some publicity.
On Monday, Jay-Z, now referred to as "Cultural Icon Shawn 'Jay-Z' Carter" will make a "significant announcement" regarding the Barclays Center and the "borough's future NBA team.'
What might that be? The top two possibilities are 1) the team will be called the Brooklyn Nets (duh) and 2) that Jay-Z will open the arena with concerts (duh).
However, I'd expect the arena promoters to turn that into two press announcements. So I'm betting on the first option--and, perhaps, the announcement of a new global sponsor.
The event will be attended by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Forest City Ratner Companies Chairman and CEO Bruce Ratner, and Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark.
Related coverage...
The Brooklyn Paper, He’s a business, man — Jay-Z to christen the Barclays Center
Rap mogul Jay-Z will christen the Barclays Center when the under-construction $1-billion home for the Brooklyn-bound Nets opens on the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues next fall.
The hip hop star, who owns a very small portion of the basketball team, will headline the venue’s first performance during a three-week grand opening at the Prospect Heights arena in September, 2012, according to a source familiar with the plan.
Jay-Z is set to announce the dates at a press conference at the Barclays Center on Monday — where Nets officials are expected to unveil a new team name.
It will be a “major announcement,” Nets CEO Brett Yormark tweeted.
NoLandGrab: Oh, well, in that case....
Prospect Heights Patch, Jay-Z To Make "Major Announcement" About Nets At Barclays Center
Posted by eric at 5:15 PM
September 22, 2011
Flashback: Nets' Yormark was "absolutely" sure the arena would open in the fall of 2011
Atlantic Yards Report
Remember how Nets CEO Brett Yormark was certain that the arena would open this season? Let's go back to a 12/2/08 interview with a skeptical Craig Carton of WFAN.
BY: A realistic time frame is in Brooklyn, operating in the summer of 2011, being there for the '11-'12 season.
CC: So being there in the fall of 2011, so three years from this season--
BY: That’s correct--
CC: --you think that you’ll have everything built, the infrastructure done, and you will bounce a basketball in an arena in Brooklyn in three years?
BY: Absolutely. Convinced of it.
Now, of course, Yormark is convinced the arena will open in the fall of 2012. It's much more likely--a lot of contractual money depends on it, which is one reason there's so much after-hours work.
But we'll keep watching for that after-hours work.
Posted by eric at 12:14 PM
The relentlessly upbeat Brett Yormark, on Twitter, selling the Barclays Center globally
Atlantic Yards Report
The relentlessly upbeat Nets CEO, Brett Yormark, is worth watching on Twitter. (So too is his twin, who has the same love of hype.)
Note that Yormark is promising shows, fights, hoops, and--as of April--a guarantee that the Nets will be in Brooklyn for opening night 2012.
(That's more likely than his past promises, given the need to fulfill sponsorship contracts. Still, he did once say he was "convinced" of a 2011 opening. So we'll keep watching for after-hours work.)
Will Barclays be "the best building in the country"? Well, I suspect it will get a lot of kudos early on. That may depend, however, on ensuring that such reporters get ushered into the building without getting confused by having to walk through a residential neighborhood from the surface parking lot.
Click thru for a collection of Yormark's typically understated tweets.
Posted by eric at 11:53 AM
Q&A: ‘Anything Good You Can Find In This Country, You Can Find In Brooklyn’ — Brett Yormark
The Big Lead
by Barry Janoff
He's baaaaaack! Here are some "highlights" from Part Two of The Big Lead's interview with Brett Yormark.
Big Lead Sports: What reaction have you gotten to using the name Brooklyn?
Brett Yormark: We have done a lot of research. We know how important the brand of Brooklyn is. My feeling is that anything good you can find in this country, you can find in Brooklyn. We went out and tested the pickles, the knishes, the cheesecake, and the best of the best will be here. The main thing about Brooklyn from a marketing point of view is the diversification. It’s a marketer’s dream to be able to target so many ethnic groups that help to make the borough what it is. Our responsibility, our job is to make sure that everyone is welcomed at the Barclays Center. And that we communicate with each of them in a relevant way.
Tested the pickles? The Nets are the Good Housekeeping Research Institute of the NBA.
BLS: You have college hockey coming to Barclays Center, so it can be converted into a hockey arena. Any interest in having the New York Islanders move in?
BY: Let me just say that we can convert it to a hockey venue and have a great destination for professional hockey. And although it is not legalized in New York State, we can handle MMA when and if it is legalized.
Mixed Martial Arts is a sophisticated sport that draws a nice crowd. Why not?
BLS: Back at the Izod Center, you were able to take unused or under-utilized spaces and turn them into proactive real estate that brought in revenue. But you’ve built Barclays Center from scratch. Will you miss uncovering long-hidden areas that you can turn into assets?
BY: It’s funny you should ask that. Every month, I sit down with my GM and I ask him to walk me though the building [on the blueprints]. Every time I look at it on paper, I see a different space that I hadn’t seen. I’m auditing the building for inventory and opportunities all the time. Our building is about 670,000 square feet, and I think it’s fair to say that we will effectively use every square inch for something.
Wait, didn't he say yesterday that sponsors "don’t want clutter?"
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Brett Yormark interview: no over-commercialization of the arena (?!), project on schedule, Brooklyn brand will be hyped, "professional hockey" viable
The $400 million fantasy
It's not the most incisive interview. The first installment included the discredited claim that the Barclays naming rights agreement was worth $400 million, not $200 million, and, despite my comment appended to that report, the claim continued to appear in the second installment.
Posted by eric at 11:32 AM
Atlantic Yards from Above!
Brownstoner
 |
A reader nicely sent in this momento from a recent flight over our fair borough. It certainly gives a good sense of the size of the Atlantic Yards footprint! You can see a larger version of the photo here.
Posted by eric at 11:20 AM
September 20, 2011
Ice try! Ratner now says he wants Islanders at Barclays Center
The Brooklyn Paper
by Daniel Bush
It shouldn't be long now before Bruce says he's "hopeful" that the New York Yankees will play their home games at the Barclays Center of Yonkers Brooklyn™, and the local press will dutifully report it.
Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner said he’s “hoping” that the New York Islanders will move to the Barclays Center once the struggling team’s lease at the Nassau Coliseum expires in 2015 — a reversal of his longtime claim that the Prospect Heights arena would be too small to host pro hockey games.
Ratner's never claimed that. In fact, the arena bond offering danced around the fact that the arena would be grossly sub-standard for NHL hockey.
“I would hope that’s possible,” Ratner said in an appearance on Bloomberg Television’s news show, “The Property Players.” “I certainly think there’s a chance.”
And Geraldo Rivera thought there was a "chance" that he'd find bags full of loot in Al Capone's vault.
There's more than a chance, however, that Ratner's edif-ice will make life miserable for locals.
Arena opponents blasted the idea that the Barclays Center would host more pro games.
“Traffic is going to be insane” on game nights, said Peter Krashes, president of the Dean Street Block Association. “Pedestrians and cars are going to swarm the neighborhood.”
Posted by eric at 11:35 AM
September 19, 2011
Sports Business Journal confirms Barclays naming rights deal was $200 million, not $400 million
Atlantic Yards Report
Is the Barclays Center naming rights deal worth "nearly $400 million," as the New York Times reported 7/19/11 or is it closer to $200 million and change?
I pointed 8/3/11 to circumstantial and documentary evidence that the deal was worth less, including a report by an FCR-commissioned consultant valuing the deal at $200 million, the loss of architect Frank Gehry, and two renegotiations.
Nets and Forest City officials have claimed that the total value of the deal remains around $400 million, but never offered any documentation.
Now, as noted by NetsDaily, "the authoritative" Sports Business Journal is using the $200 million figure.
Posted by eric at 3:14 PM
Barclays Center Developer ‘Hopeful’ About an Islanders Move to Brooklyn in 2015
NYMag.com
And the idiocy continues...
Barclays Center developer Bruce Ratner yesterday gave his strongest indication yet that he wants the Islanders in the new building, telling Bloomberg Television that he's "hopeful" the Islanders will move in once their Nassau Coliseum lease is up. Said Ratner: "I think it is highly likely there won't be a new arena built in Nassau County with the current state of the economy, so I think there is certainly a chance." (Ratner wouldn't say whether he's actually spoken with the Islanders about a potential move.)
NoLandGrab: You can bet that Ratner would "quietly" say that he'd bring some poor, disadvantaged immigrant youth to the Islanders' first game in Brooklyn, however...
Posted by eric at 10:50 AM
September 16, 2011
Isles to Brooklyn? Nets' Ratner would like it
ESPN.com
Let the idiocy continue...
In an interview with Bloomberg TV today, New Jersey Nets minority owner Bruce Ratner expressed interest in having the New York Islanders as tenants in the Barclays Center.
"I would hope that's possible," Ratner said in the interview. "It depends on a lot of things. It depends on whether the Islanders want to come. It depends on whether they have different choices."
Like the arena magically expanding to accommodate an NHL-sized rink and NHL-quality sight lines.
NoLandGrab: Bruce Ratner would like to have the Los Angeles Lakers and the Green Bay Packers move to the Barclays Center, too, which is just as likely as the Islanders moving there.
Related nonsense...
Lighthouse Hockey, Meanwhile, Ratner Hopes the Islanders Join the Nets in Brooklyn
Ratner -- who remember, is angling for his own interests here -- said he "couldn't talk about" whether discussions have taken place with the Islanders. There were reports in August of a meeting between Ratner, CEO Brett Yormark and NHL executives about the NHL playing in the new arena, but no specifics were given.
Just remember that executives stay tight-lipped when they want to. And when they want to float something publicly in a way that publicizes or advances their own interests, they'll do that, too.
NY Post, Nets would welcome Islanders in Brooklyn
Although Ratner declined to reveal whether he has had talks with the NHL team, his comments were the strongest he has made yet about pro hockey joining the NBA's Nets at the Barclays Center, which opens in September 2012.
Yahoo! Sports, Islanders moving to Brooklyn?
NYPost.com NHL Blog, Brooklyn 'possible' for Islanders, says Nets owner: report
Posted by eric at 12:15 PM
September 15, 2011
Coaches Vs. Cancer Classic Moving From MSG To Barclays Center In 2012
CBS New York
The Coaches vs. Cancer Classic will have new network and title sponsor starting in 2012.
And it’s moving from Manhattan to Brooklyn.
The tournament that started in 1995 will shuffle next year from Madison Square Garden to the new Barclays Center and its exclusive broadcast and media rights will be owned by Turner Sports.
NoLandGrab: What, no hockey?!
Posted by eric at 11:12 AM
September 14, 2011
Latest consultant's report: arena still ahead of schedule (but lead is narrowing), while transit connection is on schedule (but no longer ahead)
Atlantic Yards Report
According to the latest Arena Site Observation Report, dated 9/9/11 (and based on a 7/28/11 visit and documents made available 8/29/11), the Barclays Center remains one month ahead of schedule, while the associated transit connection to the Atlantic Avenue subway hub--after being ahead of schedule--is simply on schedule.
The estimate, based on cash flow, comes in a report prepared by Merritt & Harris, the real estate consultant to the arena PILOT Bond Trustee. Last month's report, however, stated that the transit connection was two months ahead of schedule.
(The transit connection is supposed to be completed by 3/26/12, while the arena is due 8/27/12.)
Some opacity
Also, there seems to be a lingering dispute about the schedule for which the resolution just keeps being put off, with no clarity from the consultant.
NetsDaily stated that the arena is ahead of schedule "despite" the hurricane and earthquake in August. The Site Observation Report makes no mention of the impact of either.
The hurricane hit 8/28/11, by which time nearly all of the month's spending, in documents made available 8/29/11, had been completed. In other words, next months' report should be more illuminating, though, given the relative opacity of these reports, I wouldn't bet that the impact of the hurricane will be noted.
Posted by eric at 12:53 PM
September 13, 2011
What could enhance Jay-Z's arena opening debut? Video explains... maybe a baby (named Barclays? Brooke Lynne?)
Atlantic Yards Report
It's Norman Oder who's thinking outside the box.
The news last month that Beyoncé Knowles is pregnant prompted the most Tweets per second in Twitter history. That got me thinking how the creative minds behind the Barclays Center might make the most of that pregnancy.
After all, father Jay-Z is expected by many to open the Barclays Center in August or September 2012 with a series of concerts, much in the way--but way bigger--that Jon Bon Jovi opened the Prudential Center in Newark.
The cartoon video below sketches an imaginary conversation between Nets Sports & Entertainment CEO Brett Yormark and Nets p.r. guy Barry Baum.
Posted by eric at 11:04 AM
September 5, 2011
Panoramas by Tracy Collins: three views of the arena site
Atlantic Yards
Prospect Heights photographer Tracy Collins on August 27 took several panoramic photos (copyrighted) of the Atlantic Yards arena site, from three separate positions.
Because of the wide lens, they portray the arena site as less vertical and more isolated than actual. But they're still valuable snapshots.
Atlantic Avenue near Fort Greene Place (the continuation of Fifth Avenue, were it not demapped), from the north (note how Atlantic seems to bend).
Dean Street near Flatbush Avenue, the southwest corner of the block (Dean Street bends too, as it continues behind the cars in the intersection; Flatbush goes to the east past the white building).
Atlantic Avenue near South Portland Avenue (the continuation of Sixth Avenue), looking south (note how Atlantic seems to bend).
Posted by eric at 9:49 AM
September 3, 2011
Homage to Nassau County
The Ice House Gang
By Kevin Baker
Atlantic Yards is a monumental waste of government subsidies, but at least it is useful in that it serves as a bad example.
As usual, the owner of the Islanders—a once proud team that has been about as decrepit as their home arena for a generation now—and his supporters promised that the reworked Coliseum would more than make up what its renovation would cost, thanks to extras like a minor-league ballpark to be attached, and an enhanced ability to attract conventions and rock concerts.
This is a large helping of bologna, one that is customarily served with almost all such sports arena giveaways. Long experience has shown that ballparks and ice hockey rinks and their ilk only draw discretionary income away from other diversions. The few, mostly temporary and minimum-wage jobs they create count for little against the staggering costs.
Such projects are mostly about appeasing construction unions and politicians, as the Atlantic Yards fiasco is still demonstrating. After the failure of Mr. Wang’s referendum, there was talk about moving the Islanders to that site, to share the space with basketball’s New Jersey Nets. But that seems unlikely, as the wizards who imposed that overgrown college fieldhouse on the good people of Brooklyn failed to make it big enough to accommodate NHL-sized ice.
Posted by steve at 9:45 PM
September 2, 2011
Prostitutes Returning to Flatbush Avenue?
Brownstoner via Here's Park Slope
Urban "renewal," Ratner style?
Last year I was at O'Connor's when I overheard an old-timer talking about how Flatbush Avenue near Eighth Avenue, by the Montauk Club, used to me a major gathering place for prostitutes. It's difficult to imagine that such a highly visible, relatively upper-class location could once have been run down enough to attract that element, but it was, and not too long ago, either.
Well I'm not sure what to make of this, but a reader sent this comment into Brownstoner the other day:
Shortly after midnight on Thursday, I spotted a very sad new development on Flatbush and Dean, across from the totally deserted arena skeleton: A young pimp working with two teenage hookers. He was dressed in all white and the girls were doing their best to vamp when he got a car to stop and check them out.…It’s definitely because that whole area is deserted while every body waits for the supposed arena crowd spillover payday to open businesses there that this kind of activity could take place. It is funny because the Flatbush Avenue renovation has been heralded by the pols as the necessary upgrade of the gateway to the new, improved Brooklyn. So in addition to an arena and some planters you now get street hookers and pimps hustling.
If this is true (and it wasn't some sort of undercover sting), it's a sad development indeed.
NoLandGrab: Sure, one can't believe all one reads on Brownstoner, but this doesn't sound all that unbelievable.
Posted by eric at 9:47 PM
August 31, 2011
Coming after the arena opens, a follow-up study about traffic conditions
Atlantic Yards Report
The Empire State Development Corporation has posted (also embedded below) 68 questions and responses from the 6/14/11 public meeting on traffic issues.
I've already highlighted some of the questions and responses, including the capacity of sidewalks on Dean Street, plans for the surface parking lot, and the impact of traffic on the Dean Street Playground.
Post-Arena Opening Traffic Study
The question:
3. When will the scope for a follow-up study be established? Will local Stakeholders (electeds, Community Boards and Community Members) have input into the scope? If there are additional changes that will affect traffic or pedestrian flow, what is the timeline for them and what processes will be used to consult the public?
The response:
As required by the FEIS, after the Arena opens, a traffic study will be done to provide information about traffic conditions in the area. The purpose of the study will be to optimize the implementation of the mitigation identified in the FEIS and to identify any further or different opportunities to improve traffic conditions. The study will evaluate the effectiveness of the Arena’s Transportation Demand Management Plan, an FEIS-required traffic mitigation measure that seeks to divert automotive traffic away from the Arena by encouraging the use of mass transit and parking at remote locations. The study will also consider the actual data about conditions after the Arena opening (the FEIS was able to consider only projected traffic conditions) to identify opportunities to improve traffic conditions and to optimize the implementation of any FEIS mitigation measures not implemented prior to the Arena opening. For example, in light of data about actual (rather than projected) traffic conditions after the Arena opens, it may be possible to improve upon signal timing recommendations made in the FEIS, as is common in other NYC projects that have a long lead time between the preparation of the FEIS and the construction of certain project elements. The study will also evaluate pedestrian issues in affected areas. This will be a public process, led by ESD and NYCDOT, and the public and other stakeholders will have an opportunity to review and comment on the scope of the study and its results and recommendations. At this time, FCRC is implementing most of the FEIS traffic mitigation for Phase I of the Project, while postponing implementation of certain traffic measures (such as the widening of 6th Avenue between Dean Street and Flatbush Avenue and the construction of additional lay-by lanes on 6th Avenue on the Arena block) at the direction of NYCDOT until after the Arena opens and data can be gathered as to how best to implement or improve upon the FEIS-required traffic measures. ESD has not approved changes to the FEIS traffic measures at this time.
Posted by eric at 10:35 AM
August 29, 2011
Barclays Center Arena panorama
 |
Atlantic Avenue near South Portland Avenue
Prospect Heights
Brooklyn, New YorkThe Barclays Center Arena of Atlantic Yards is under construction south of Atlantic Avenue.
Posted by eric at 9:18 AM
August 28, 2011
Arena architect: "revenue-generating amenities" key; new rendering shows Coke; arena once to be Sportsplex
Atlantic Yards Report
On a web page made available earlier this week (but now unavailable), the main arena architects, Ellerbe Becket, an AECOM company, explained noted that "revenue-generating amenities" are key to the Barclays Center:
Ellerbe Becket, an AECOM company, was selected, in association with SHoP Architects, to design the Barclays Center – the new home of the National Basketball Association's (NBA) Nets. When complete in 2012, this promises to be the most exciting venue in the NBA. Sited in the heart of Brooklyn, the design features a unique weathered steel facade, and a main entrance covered by an impressive canopy with an oculus that contains a dynamic marquee. The glazed main concourse is at street level, making the arena more pedestrian-friendly and creating a strong visual connection with the neighborhood.
The Barclays Center will feature one of the most intimate seating configurations ever designed into a modern multi-purpose arena, with unparalleled sightlines and first-class amenities. An abundance of premium seating will accommodate virtually any spectator need. Seven clubs and restaurants provide further revenue-generating amenities that today’s patrons both appreciate and have increasingly come to expect.
...
As I wrote 8/23/11, in the 8/4/03 Brooklyn Paper [PDF], an article headlined "Nets could take Sportsplex D’town" quoted a very certain Borough President Marty Markowitz:
For two decades Brooklyn politicos have been dreaming of an amateur athletics arena — a “sportsplex” — for the borough. That dream was shelved when the city instead moved ahead with Keyspan Park in Coney Island.
...Markowitz is doubly excited because he anticipates that the facility could be used as a scholastic and amateur sportsplex when the professional team is not playing.
“It would be a multi-use arena and thus a sportsplex would definitely be included in it,” Markowitz told The Brooklyn Papers.
...But asked whether a sportsplex would be part of the Ratner-Nets arena plan he said, “Without a question. It would incorporate, in my opinion, now once again I’m not the one, I’m not gonna own it, but I have no doubt that it would also double as a sportsplex for high school sports — no question about it. It has to be, and it would be, a borough facility, a borough resource, of course.”Well, some high school tournaments might be played at the arena, but the ink is going elsewhere. The arena would be less a "borough facility" than a "facility in the borough."
Posted by steve at 10:05 PM
August 25, 2011
Barclays Center Going Up, Out, and Glassy
Curbed
by Kelsey Keith
Curbed has new construction photos of the Barclays Center, replete with God-awful pre-rusted siding.
You've seen all the ridiculously glossy renderings, but how's that Barclays Center arenafication business going? Evidenced by our intrepid intern William Weber, a good portion of the weathered steel facade is in place and things are getting glassy.
 |
Photo: William Weber/Curbed
Posted by eric at 11:12 AM
August 23, 2011
The Barclays Center hires a consultant to book ethnic shows. What's missing? That plan for a student Sportsplex
Atlantic Yards Report
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, reprinting a press release under the headline Barclays Center Names Multicultural Programs Consultant, reports:
Barclays Center of Brooklyn has named Jackie Alvarez as an artistic programming consultant, in which she will program the venue with a variety of multicultural shows and events. Alvarez will serve under the direction of Sean Saadeh, Barclays Center's vice president of programming.
With nearly two decades of experience in booking top ethnic shows for the New York market, Alvarez will identify a wide-range of leading artists in genres such as Latin, Brazilian, Caribbean, Russian, Chinese, Korean, Indian and more.
Alvarez served as a programmer for ethnic and non-ethnic shows and events for Madison Square Garden for 17 years.
And what about the Sportsplex?
Eight years ago, in the 8/4/03 Brooklyn Paper [PDF], an article headlined "Nets could take Sportsplex D’town" quoted a very certain Borough President Marty Markowitz:
For two decades Brooklyn politicos have been dreaming of an amateur athletics arena — a “sportsplex” — for the borough. That dream was shelved when the city instead moved ahead with Keyspan Park in Coney Island.
Now, with principals of the New Jersey Nets in negotiations to move their team to a new arena in Downtown Brooklyn, some prominent Brooklyn officials believe the dream for such a facility will be enhanced, not quashed, by a professional team’s occupancy here.
...Markowitz is doubly excited because he anticipates that the facility could be used as a scholastic and amateur sportsplex when the professional team is not playing.
“It would be a multi-use arena and thus a sportsplex would definitely be included in it,” Markowitz told The Brooklyn Papers.
Markowitz cautioned that he could not comment on negotiations or whether he played any part in bringing Ratner and the Nets together.
But asked whether a sportsplex would be part of the Ratner-Nets arena plan he said, “Without a question. It would incorporate, in my opinion, now once again I’m not the one, I’m not gonna own it, but I have no doubt that it would also double as a sportsplex for high school sports — no question about it. It has to be, and it would be, a borough facility, a borough resource, of course.”
Well, some high school tournaments might be played at the arena, but the ink is going elsewhere. The arena would be less a "borough facility" than a "facility in the borough."
NoLandGrab: Yup, no question about it.
Posted by eric at 10:43 AM
August 22, 2011
First the Nets, Now the Islanders?
NHL team may join the Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center
Park Slope Patch
by McCarton Ackerman
Yes, the Islanders may move to Brooklyn — and a giant spaceship may land in Prospect Park and disgorge Snuffleupagus.
Brooklyn will soon be getting a long-awaited professional basketball team when the Nets take the court at the Barclays Center, but a pro hockey team may also be in the cards as well.
According to Gothamist, real estate developer Bruce Ratner and Nets CEO Brett Yomark met NHL league officials at their headquarters in Manhattan last week to express interest in bringing the New York Islanders to Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: Good grief! Gothamist, which was picking up a Newsday story, that was riffing on some other media report, actually wrote that "spokespeople declined to discuss what exactly was talked about." Yes, the Islanders are definitely moving to Brooklyn.
Posted by eric at 9:27 PM
NHL Chats Up Barclays Center But Is Mum On Moving Islanders
Gothamist
Hey, those rumors that the Islanders, our local soon to be stadium-less hockey team, might be coming to Brooklyn may have an ounce of truth to them.
Uh, no. But click thru for more if you want.
Posted by eric at 10:34 AM
August 19, 2011
Ratner, Yormark Meet NHL Officials
NetsDaily
Most likely they were stopping in for a sneak preview of NHL 12 or some other fantasy hockey game.
CNBC's Darren Rovell reports that Bruce Ratner and Brett Yormark visited officials of the National Hockey League Thursday. A Nets insider confirmed the meeting, which took place at the NHL offices in Manhattan, but declined to discuss any details including whether an architect accompanied the two. It's one more indication that the Barclays Center is serious about luring the Islanders to Brooklyn.
In his tweet, Rovell wrote, "Barclays Center Developer Ratner & CEO Yormark spotted at NHL offices today. Brooklyn Islanders?" The big issue, of course, is whether the league would approve an arena with a limited capacity for hockey and questionable sightlines.
Posted by eric at 11:09 AM
August 18, 2011
Mixed Reactions to New Sports Bar Near Planned Arena
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill]
by Kyle Thomas McGovern
The Barclays Center is not scheduled to open until next September, but just a block away, at 602 Pacific Street, there’s another sports-related establishment sparking debate.
When Machavelle Sports Bar & Lounge — a softly lit two-level drinkery with a wooden bar and plush couches — started serving pints in May, some residents shared their concerns with Park Slope Patch that the area would soon resemble 42nd Street or New Orleans’ Bourbon Street. Others have accused the owners of capitalizing on the planned arena, which many of the bar’s neighbors oppose.
Jon Crow, the coordinator of the Brooklyn Bears Community Garden on Pacific Street, just across from Machavelle, said the bar marks the first of many negative changes to the neighborhood’s landscape as it prepares for the Barclays Center to open.
“You’re going to have a rash of bars like this that want to open up and capitalize on all the crowds they see coming for the games and performances at the ‘urina,’” Mr. Crow said. “We call it the ‘urina’ because when they’re leaving the ‘urina’ they’re going to be urinating all over the neighborhood.”
The owners of the bar, stung by the criticism, point out that that they’re Brooklynites themselves. They say they’ve been unfairly accused of favoring profit over their Pacific Street neighbors.
“We’re not trying to infiltrate,” said Carolyne Monereau-St. Louis, the wife of one of the bar’s owners, Eddie St. Louis. “We just want to be a part of the community, of the neighborhood.”
...“I don’t have a problem with sports bars,” said Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, a non-profit that has been critical of the Atlantic Yards project. “I do obviously have a problem with the arena that attracts businesses that are not about the community, they’re about serving patrons of the arena.”
Still, Mr. Goldstein said he does not bear any ill will toward the owners of Machavelle Sports Bar & Lounge. “As Brooklynites, I hope they do well with their business,” he said.
Posted by eric at 1:15 PM
August 15, 2011
A Visit to 620 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn: What Dwight Howard Saw Friday
NetsDaily
The pseudonymous Net Income pays a visit to Prospect Heights.
Now that the roof is racing across the arena's 350-foot-long trusses, the impression from ground level is that how enormous it is. It is much larger and grander in scale than the brownstones to the south but for the most part it's in sync with the downtown feel of the area between the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush and the bridges to Manhattan.
...Already, the clubs that will serve the arena are going up, indicating other smaller-scale, arena-motivated commercial activity is starting to rise as well. Prime 6 and Machavelle have renovated their properties. A mattress store where the largest of the new clubs, Players GastroPub, will go is having a going-out-of-busines sale. Bark, an aptly named hot dog restaurant nearby, is doing well in anticipation of the opening. It's where the Nets often bring guests.
There didn't seem to be any outward opposition. No graffiti or protest signs on the construction fencing we saw. In fact, we spotted two other fans snapping pictures of the construction. Traffic even on a late Saturday afternoon was heavy and we had to skirt a fender bender at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush. We anticipate once the arena is open, that intersection is bound to get even messier for a variety of reasons, not all of them anticipated. The stop line for westbound Atlantic Avenue traffic at Fort Greene Place is just opposite the VIP Entrance and Practice Facility curbside viewing point. "Was that Kim Kardashian!?!" Rubber necking galore.
Down below street level, we walked the soon-to-be renamed Barclays Center station, linking the new LIRR Atlantic Terminal station with nine subway lines. Game days, it's going to be jammed down there on the concourse.
Posted by eric at 10:19 AM
August 10, 2011
Brooklyn hockey fans ready to welcome Islanders to new Barclays Center
NY Daily News
by Mark Morales and Al Barbarino
More "Brooklyn Islanders" fantasy.
The New York Islanders are one step closer to being nudged off the Island and cast adrift - but Brooklyn fans stand ready to hoist them back in.
Kings County hockey lovers jumped at the idea of having the team share the Nets' Barclays Center at Atlantic Yards.
...Perhaps that door will open in Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: And perhaps that's utter nonsense.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Daily News, forgetting arena design issues, cheerleads for move of Islanders to Brooklyn
[T]he Brooklyn arena was consciously redesigned to save money and focus on a very tight bowl for basketball, a fact unmentioned in the article and the caption. To accommodate hockey, there would be bad sightlines and only about 14,000 seats--suboptimal.
There still may be a financial argument--the Islanders' cable deal, but that's still a question mark.
TripleDeke.net, TripleDeke Poll: Islanders Arena
Even Islander fans know that the Brooklyn fable is nonsense.
Brooklyn, in my opinion is not a viable option. The design of Atlantic Yards is simply not conducive to NHL hockey. It could be a nice fill-in while something better is being constructed, but it can’t be a permanent home for the team.
Posted by eric at 11:04 AM
August 9, 2011
Coke Will Make Special Sodas For The New Nets Arena
Gothamist
by Garth Johnston
Sure they will.
Coke will reportedly be treating fans with "special Brooklyn-themed flavored beverages" along with the company's trademark sodas.
But for now the company is keeping mum as to what those special drinks will be, so we can only speculate. In honor of the Atlantic Yards' troubled history, perhaps will there be a Gatorade flavor called NIMBYade? When Life Gives You NIMBYs, make NIMBYade! Or maybe a Coca-Cola Net Loss drink to replace Diet Coke? It burns calories, and your hopes of a successful NBA franchise, just drinking it! Meh. Somehow we suspect the final products will be more like In A New York Minute Maid. How would you flavor a Brooklyn-themed beverage?
NoLandGrab: Even Manhattan Special would be more Brooklyn-y than Coca Cola.
Posted by eric at 10:45 AM
August 8, 2011
Coke 'nets' deal at B'klyn arena
NY Post
by Rich Calder
We guess this is why Brooklyn is known as "the Atlanta of the North," right?
Coke is it -- in Brooklyn.
The Barclays Center and Coca-Cola have cut a multimillion-dollar deal to make the soda giant the exclusive soft-drink provider at the Nets' new NBA arena when it opens in September 2012, The Post has learned.
Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark said the arena and the Nets chose Coke because of its longstanding historical ties to Brooklyn, where it once was the official soda of the Dodgers at Ebbets Field.
Nets fans and Brooklynites lobbied for Coke products after arena officials in 2007 initially selected little-known Jones Soda. The arena has settled its contract with Jones.
"Our goal is making this arena all about Brooklyn -- even the food and drink -- and one thing that became clear to me is Brooklyn's a Coke town," Yormark said.
NoLandGrab: Can't be long now before Sara Lee is named "the official cheesecake of the Barclays Center."
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, As Jones Soda deal dissolves, arena promoter Yormark pronounces Coke is "all about Brooklyn" (though he was once lauded for choosing Jones over Coke)
As it happens, Yormark was lauded in a 8/24/08 USA Today article for choosing Jones over Coke:
Sealing the deal is what it's all about. "The chase is what gets me up every morning," he says. The chase is also about thinking outside the box whenever possible. When seeking out a beverage sponsor for the Barclays Center, Yormark didn't call Coca-Cola. He called Jones Soda, a little-known Seattle brand.
Jones got a big-time entrée into the East Coast market. And the Barclays Center got a company willing to help build its fledgling brand. Jones has already created a customized soda label with the Barclays Center logo.
NLG: Unfortunately, none of those Barclays Center sodas have turned up on eBay.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Ratner/Prokhorov/Barclays Arena CEO Brett Yormark: "Brooklyn's a Coke town"
How many more years of drivel are we going to have to take from Ratner/Prokhorov/Barclays Arena CEO Brett Yormark. Here's the latest from the mouth that roared.
Posted by eric at 11:51 AM
Then and Now Thursday: De-Mapped on Flatbush
Here's Park Slope
Flatbush, Fifth Avenue and what used to be Pacific Street, before and after.
There are very few instances of streets being entirely wiped off the map in our neighborhood. In the South Slope, we've got the parts of 17th Street displaced for the Prospect Expressway, and in the far North Slope, parts of Fifth Avenue, Dean Street, and Pacific Street have been de-mapped, all within the past couple years, for construction of the Barclay's Center.
In the above 1914 photo, we see one of those rare views that simply does not exist anymore. It's looking northeast, at the tail end of Fifth Avenue from Flatbush, toward Dean Street. Joseph Kaiser's Clothier, Furnisher, and Hatter flanks a bicycle shop on Fifth, and a butcher shop named Berger & Son Company "Of America" is on Dean.
NoLandGrab: For the record, no portion of Dean Street has been de-mapped, "only" Fifth Avenue and Pacific Street.
Posted by eric at 11:05 AM
August 5, 2011
Forbes: lucrative TV deal could lead Islanders to Brooklyn, despite smaller arena than desired
Atlantic Yards Report
Tom Van Riper writes in Forbes that, despite the fact that the Barclays Center is designed for basketball, meaning bad sightlines for hockey and a capacity of some 14,000 seats, it's more than likely the arena would become home to the Islanders when the Nassau Coliseum lease expires in three years.
...The Islanders would be a tenant, so few if any revenue from suite sales and naming rights, Van Riper notes, but the cost would be fixed, the arena's accessible, and then there's "NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman’s preference for market stability."
It didn't convince deMause, but...
In his Field of Schemes blog, Neil deMause linked to Van Riper's piece but was skeptical, writing:
So: Brooklyn Islanders, possible? Yes. Likely? Unless both Chales Wang and the NHL decide that the Brooklyn market is so lucrative that it's worth playing in a substandard arena, don't hold your breath.
But deMause didn't directly address the issue cable TV rights, so let's consider it an open issue. He had previously written:
Add in that being even on the outskirts of the NY media market is worth a bunch in cable and sponsorship dollars - or would be if anyone started paying attention to the Islanders again - and it's hard to see where they'd move to that would be an improvement on staying put and throwing another Nassau arena plan at the wall to see if this one sticks.
Posted by eric at 11:39 AM
Brooklyn Islanders May be Closer to Reality
Forbes.com
by Tom Van Riper
...in a fantasy land where arena design, seating capacity and awful sightlines don't matter. More Brooklyn Islanders! mania.
Back in 1999, as the local cable sports landscape was beginning its metamorphosis into team owned stations like the Yankees’ YES Network, the Islanders inked an extension with Cablevision all the way through the 2030-31 season, for rights fees that escalate from roughly $14 million a year initially to a reported $36 million by the last year of the deal. The contract is the Islanders’ most valuable asset, one they’re unlikely to duplicate in another market.
“Basically, you can’t leave the market,” says sports business consultant Marc Ganis. So how do you leave your outdated facility behind without leaving the market and your sweet television deal? Join Mikhail Prokhorov and his NBA Nets at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Related nonsense coverage...
WNYC, Could Brooklyn's Barclays Center Be Future Home for the New York Islanders?
“It actually gives the Barclays Center another avenue for revenue, growth and opportunity, and also helps them fill an additional 41 days on their calendar each and every year,” he said.
However, McDonnell said that putting a hockey rink in Brooklyn does involve some risk.
“The game is a tough product to push these days, especially in New York, where sports fans are over-saturated,” he said.
The Real Deal, Barclays Center could score a hockey team
Now Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark said he would be open to "explore hockey opportunities." With a regulation-size hockey rink the stadium's seating capacity would be reduced to just 14,500 people for hockey games, by far the smallest in the National Hockey League.
Finally, a dollop of sanity...
F**ked in Park Slope, BARCLAYS CENTER BULLSHIT: TRAFFIC & HOCKEY
And just in case you cared, the official word was handed down that the Barclays Center will be housing an ice-rink capable of professional hockey team. Once again scraping the bottom of the barrel, who have they found that might be interested? The New York Islanders. ACCORDING TO ESPN, the teams lease at the Nassau Colesium runs out in 2015 and the team wants a new stadium. This is all speculation of course. Once the Islanders realize it takes 4 hours to get in and out of downtown Brooklyn, they'll probably run screaming.
For all the rest of us who don't care about shitty basketball teams or shitty hockey teams, we are left with shitty traffic... FOREVER.
Posted by eric at 11:25 AM
August 4, 2011
Sorry, Islanders: Brooklyn Nets arena still too small for hockey
Field of Schemes
by Neil deMause
Some cold water for the purveyors of "Brooklyn Islanders" nuttiness.
The only problem, as sharp-eyed FoS readers will remember (or as even dull-eyed Village Voice readers will, since I just wrote about it there on Tuesday): In order to save money, Brooklyn arena builder Bruce Ratner "value engineered" the Barclays Center to have a floor too small for hockey, essentially requiring that thousands of seats be ripped out to make room for a playing surface twice the length of a basketball court.
The Brooklyn Paper's headline was based on the same canned statement by Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark as I cited in my Voice piece.
...The Brooklyn Paper pegs the number of seats lost at 3,500 (no source given), which would give the arena the smallest capacity in the NHL. More to the point, as I noted in the Voice (thanks in part to a tip from an FoS reader), squeezing an NHL rink into a structure built for basketball could create some seriously ugly sightlines, as happened when the Phoenix Coyotes tried a similar scheme at America West Arena a bunch of years back.
Add in that the Islanders would be tenants of the Nets at the arena, and would probably be expected to pay rent (they'd be taking up nights that could otherwise be used for Lady Gaga shows and the like, after all), and it starts sounding like a less tempting opportunity.
...So: Brooklyn Islanders, possible? Yes. Likely? Unless both Charles Wang and the NHL decide that the Brooklyn market is so lucrative that it's worth playing in a substandard arena, don't hold your breath.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Hockey in Brooklyn? deMause sees through the hype
Posted by eric at 11:54 AM
GAME CHANGER! Professional hockey could be coming to Brooklyn
The Brooklyn Paper
by Aaron Short
No, professional hockey is not coming to Brooklyn. For the record, it is far more likely that Bruce Ratner returns to the taxpayers the hundreds of millions of our cash he's received than it is that the Islanders will ever call the Barclays Center home.
Barclays Center officials now say that the Prospect Heights sports arena will be able to host a professional hockey team — a flip-flop that comes days after Nassau County voters rejected a new home for the struggling New York Islanders.
Developer Forest City Ratner originally intended to include hockey as a possible use for the under-construction $1-billion home for the Brooklyn-bound Nets, but the icemen were banished when the arena was redesigned two years ago to cut costs.
“We hope to explore hockey opportunities in the future,” Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark said this week, though quickly adding, “[but] our primary focus at the moment is to build the best sports and entertainment venue in the world.”
...The venue is designed to hold 18,000 seats for basketball, but its capacity for hockey games would only be 14,500 seats, about 1,750 seats less than the Nassau Coliseum. It would be the smallest arena in the National Hockey League.
NoLandGrab: And because the Barclays Center was designed expressly for basketball, a good number of those remaining seats would have terrible sightlines.
But don't let the facts stop the madness:
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn Islanders?
Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov is currently keeping a safe distance from rumors that the Barclays Center would be a perfect landing spot for the troubled Islanders after Monday’s “No” vote from the Nassau County Board of Elections rejected owner Charles Wang’s plan for a near arena on Long Island.
“As before, [Prokhorov has] no interest in pursuing the purchase of another sports team at this time,” said the Russian billionaire’s spokesperson in a statement Tuesday.
...Yormark was quick to fend off reports that the Barclays Center wasn’t built to host NHL games this week.
“Barclays Center will have an ice rink that can support professional hockey,” Yormark said via e-mail.
Gothamist, The Islanders Playing Hockey In Brooklyn? Hey, It Could Happen
In addition, they'll likely have some competition from Seattle, Suffolk County, Quebec City, and another borough who are in the market for a sports franchise: Queens! Jack Friedman, executive director of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, told the News that they were hoping to create a sports complex with the Islanders, Mets and U.S. Open. "I really believe this is the time for Queens County to open up their arms," he said.
All About Fifth, Islanders in Brooklyn?
Of course, it didn't take long for the local press to start talking about the Islanders' options, including moving into the controversial Barclays Center, currently being built at the end of Fifth Avenue for the New Jersey Nets.
So, what do you think? Can we support a hockey franchise? Is it better to get the most use out of the arena (even if we hate it) or is the extra traffic not worth the hassle?
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill], The Day: Islanders Eye Brooklyn
Looks like we might get yet another new sports team.
Posted by eric at 11:32 AM
Nets Pushing "Billion Dollar Arena"
NetsDaily
Few things could be more offensive in this time of high unemployment and an economy on the brink than touting how expensive your shiny new (heavily subsidized) arena is — especially when you're failing to live up to your promises for jobs.
Enter Bruce Ratner.
It may not be the "world's most famous arena" (it's really just a marketing slogan), but it will be the "world's most expensive arena" (although the Knicks might note its "transformation" costs almost as much as Barclays). It may not be the "Mecca" of basketball, but it will be the "Taj Mahal" (so says Avery Johnson). Get it?
The Nets are indeed promoting that Barclays will be the world's first billion dollar arena. In a city of big, bigger and biggest, that could catch on. "All together, interest, taxes, everything, it's a billion dollars," Bruce Ratner told an NY1 reporter earlier this month.
Related coverage...
Construction Digital, The NBA Comes to Brooklyn
We stopped reading halfway through the seventh paragraph, where they ascribed the arena design to Frank Gehry.
Posted by eric at 11:04 AM
July 28, 2011
Can Fourth Avenue Really Be Grand?
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz thinks so.
Park Slope Patch
by Will Yackowicz
A news report featuring the name "Markowitz" usually means another ethics violation and attendant fine, but this one's actually about the future of Brooklyn's Fourth Avenue.
Between Bergen Street and St. Marks Place there are almost ten vacant storefronts, but there are also three bars, a pizzeria, a two-week old wine shop and two trees. Two business owners on the strip believe there is hope for the Avenue.
Juan Carlos Aguilera, the general manager of the bar Cherry Tree, believes in Fourth Avenue’s transformation. He moved from Argentina two and a half years ago and in that time said the block changed “drastically.” With the new Nets arena coming, he said, there is no stopping Fourth Avenue.
“This will be the principle street in two years. New businesses are sprouting up everyday,” Aguilera said. “In two years it will be completely changed.” He also explained that Cherry Tree, which owns the vacant building next door and the pizzeria on the other side, is going to help the transformation by putting two more bars on each side and a recording studio in the basement.
NoLandGrab: 'Cause God knows there aren't nearly enough bars planned for the area surrounding the Barclays Center. What better to improve neighborhood quality of life than more bars?
Posted by eric at 10:55 PM
July 23, 2011
Barclays Center And The Arts: How To Fill An Arena
Prospect Heights Patch
There was much attention three weeks ago when the Barclays Center of Brooklyn announced that there would be a partnership with the Brooklyn Academy of Music to help put on some shows in the arena, which offers almost nine times the seating capacity of BAM's largest current theater. "With the construction of the Barclays Center, there will be a remarkable array of arts and entertainment venues, ranging from 250 to 18,000 seats, within a two-block radius here in Fort Greene," Karen Brooks Hopkins, president of BAM, was quoted as saying. She promised “spectacular large scale, artistically-driven events that have never been seen in New York City” – shows “on a very large scale, large nouvelle cirque kind of work, big dance kind of things, music.”
How any BAM events could come any where near to filling an 18,000 seat arena is a mystery, but not to worry. This is basically a publicity stunt as BAM would recommend only 3 events each year.
Posted by steve at 9:38 PM
July 21, 2011
New Barclays Center Stadium: Did You Know They're Talking About 200 Events a Year?
About.com Brooklyn, NY
Uh, yes.
Wow. I just finished doing a little what's-what article about the rapidly rising Barclays Center stadium at Atlantic Yards, and I'm bowled over by the number of events the developers are talking about putting on: 200 a year. Let me repeat: Two hundred a year.
...That's a LOT of people streaming in, out, and around the area; the stadium will seat 18,000 for basketball games, and jam an extra 1,000 or so more in for concerts.
...The new Brooklyn stadium isn't Ebbets Field redux, oh misty eyed nostalgic Brooklynites, although Larry King's ads would make you think this is all about getting a pro sports team back to Brooklyn. Nope.
Posted by eric at 11:40 AM
As New York Heats Up, Workers Try To Stay Cool
All Things Considered
by Joel Rose
It's summer, ergo, it's hot.
ROSE: It was also business as usual at Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, where construction of a new basketball arena is under way. Electrician Steve Lewis is rewiring streetlights on Flatbush Avenue near the future arena.
Mr. STEVE LEWIS: Nothing's different. Just do your job and make sure you drink a lot of water to stay cool. This is nothing, wait 'til Friday, right?
NoLandGrab: Think Friday'll be bad? Wait 'til the first time a few thousand arena-goers try to drive down Dean Street to Bruce Ratner's 1,100-car surface parking lot.
Posted by eric at 11:21 AM
July 20, 2011
Rhetoric check: arena now dubbed "Barclays Center of Brooklyn," taking advantage of Brooklyn connection (and connoting civic virtue)
Atlantic Yards Report
As noted on NetsDaily, the Barclays Center arena is now being called the Barclays Center of Brooklyn.
What's in the name?
Clearly arena promoters are taking advantage of the geographic location--Brooklyn's got a lot of buzz these days--but there's something more going on, I'd suggest.
It's very unusual to attach a geographic location to an arena, as these lists of United States and Canadian arenas show. (Ditto for stadiums.) Of the few arenas with geographical locations, it's not typical to use "of." The list includes, for example, HP Pavilion at San Jose.
What it means
The name "Barclays Center of Brooklyn" is designed, I believe, to leave the impression that the arena is somehow embedded in the borough, a contributor to civic virtue and local coffers.
Posted by eric at 9:30 PM
Renderings of arena interiors (by SHoP) "unveiled," though "subject to change"
Atlantic Yards Report
Promoters of the Barclays Center--um, now the Barclays Center of Brooklyn--have "unveiled" renderings of several interior spaces, "including the spectacular entrances, Main Concourse, Arena Atrium, four bars/lounges, three clubs, one restaurant, and select suites."
They're designed by SHoP, the buzzy architectural firm hired to improve the Ellerbe Becket arena. As noted the "creative renderings" are "subject to change," which surely was an important warning for those who pondered Frank Gehry's various Atlantic Yards renderings.
Two renderings (click to enlarge)
 |
 |
Click thru for the "official" press release.
NoLandGrab: "Spectacular?" Looks like most any other arena.
Related coverage...
NY Observer, Atlantic Yards Arena: Bars With a Chance of Basketball
The new images are even complete with stylishly dressed virtual people cheering on (presumably) the Nets in their new home.
And by the looks of these renderings there will be no shortage of alcohol in the new arena, which will house at least four bars and a court-side club. Swanky.
NY Post, Inside look at Nets new arena
It’s not "The Worlds Most Famous Arena," but it’ll certainly be New York’s most modern.
The Nets’ new Brooklyn home — set to open in September 2012 — can’t compete with Madison Square Garden’s storied history, but it will be packed with a slew of modern amenities.
Park Slope Patch, Luxe Treatment for VIPs at the Barclays Center
"The interior spaces of the Barclays Center will provide premium experiences that are reflective of a sophisticated and dynamic venue in the heart of Brooklyn," said Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark in a statement. "nothing has been spared in creating an inviting and spectacular environment to compliment the best events in sports and entertainment."
NoLandGrab: Plus the Nets!
Curbed, Fancy Chandeliers and Courtside Club for Barclays Center VIPs
SHoP principal Gregg Pasquarelli says the firm designed the Barclays interiors to focus on "bringing the energy of Brooklyn street life into the arena," using a "simple yet tactile palette of industrial materials." If you're curious what "simple yet tactile" is running these days, the Roll & Hill chandelier* pictured in the second slide above runs for $5,000 and up.
NoLandGrab: * Roll & Hill chandelier not included.
The Brooklyn Paper, Separate and unequal at the Barclays Center
Critics were nonplussed by the arena’s glitzy design.
“It’s surprising that they don’t have the money to pay for the rest of the project,” said Candace Carponter, the legal director of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, one of the groups suing the state over Atlantic Yards, “but they’re going to sell high-priced tickets to high-rollers who’ll show up in big cars and clog traffic on our streets.”
Gothamist, What The Brooklyn Nets' New Barclays Center Home Will Look Like Inside
And while the just-released renderings of the $1 billion dollar building's interiors, by the firm SHoP Architects PC, aren't exactly riveting they are...something.
WONDER at the all white VIP entrance where Russian billionaires will be able to avoid the hoi polloi. MARVEL at the earth-toned main concourse which "includes a smooth terrazzo floor reflecting the lights of a night sky above with clear directional signage to seat and suite locations." STARE at the Beers of the World bar which will never in all its days look as empty as it does in SHoP's rendering and finally OGGLE the private suites that you will never be able to visit!
The Real Deal, Nets reveal interiors of Barclays Center
The interior will use brown and gray colored lighting to achieve a "Brooklyn feel," Christopher Sharples, co-founder of the stadium's designers, SHoP Architects, said.
NLG: Feel this, Sharples!
NetsDaily, Barclays Interior Designs Released
Meanwhile, the two reigning heavyweight boxing champions, Ukrainian brothers Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko said they were excited about the possibility of bouts at Barclays in front a big Russian crowd. "Let's do it," said Wladimir.
Posted by eric at 5:56 PM
July 17, 2011
Barclays Center takes shape at Atlantic Yards
Crain's New York Business
You know there's something wrong when a documentary that exposes government hypocrisy in awarding a no-bid project to a politically-connected developer is an "insult."
Rising at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, the new home of the New Jersey Nets has survived lawsuits, neighborhood protests and a severe recession. The latest insult is called The Battle for Brooklyn, a documentary critical of the project that opened recently to favorable reviews.
And you know a reporter is in trouble when he main source of AY info is Brett Yormark. (Weasel words are highlighted.)
Images of the recently completed designs for corporate suites and public areas have just gone on display in the center's midtown showroom as sales efforts ramp up in advance of a September 2012 opening. The 18,000-seat arena has sold close to half of its 100 corporate suites.
How close to half?
It also has 163 events booked for the first year, including 44 Nets games. Mr. Yormark said he aims to have more than 220 events in total.
Additionally, sales of the 4,400 premium season tickets, which top out at $1,500 a game, have “exceeded” expectations, Mr. Yormark said, though he declined to give an exact figure.
Anyone who only "aims" for a number, and "declines to give exact figures" is probably not you best source for a news story.
Posted by steve at 4:39 PM
The new Nets' arena rising in Brooklyn is shaping up as a huge plus for an underused neighborhood
Daily News
Somewhere, on some planet in another dimension, the fight over Atlantic Yards never happened. Nobody questioned the threat eminent domain used to empty a neighborhood. Nobody ever questioned why public money was being spent on an arena that would never return the monies spent and nobody questioned what benefits would come from the project and when. This editorial was written on that planet.
Designed so that half is below ground level and half above, the building will fit seamlessly into the bustle of the surrounding area, home to the nearby Atlantic Terminal Mall and Atlantic Center. It will neither clog the downtown Brooklyn commercial center to the north nor threaten the quality of life in residential communities to the south.
And, as a huge plus, the arena sits beside the convergence of nine subway lines and the Long Island Rail Road. A couple more subway lines and myriad buses ply routes within a few blocks.
To look at it is, again, to rue the wrongheadedness of the anti-development forces that delayed builder Bruce Ratner's plans for the arena, plus thousands of units of housing, through unsuccessful lawsuit after unsuccessful lawsuit after unsuccessful lawsuit.
Oh yeah -- those thousands of units of housing that have yet to even be designed, never mind delivered. And there's that pesky lawsuit that was successful because the ESDC said the project would be built in 10 years but they really knew it would take 25. Give us a call when the benefits arrive, if anybody lives long enough to see them.
Posted by steve at 4:25 PM
July 15, 2011
The Next Generation
SportsPro Magazine
by Eoin Connolly
Will the Barclays Center "alter the landscape in more ways than one?" Certainly if you live anywhere near it.
“I honestly believe,” says New Jersey Nets minority owner Bruce Ratner, “that in America we do sometimes build an arena with some semblance of architectural taste, and architecturally it’s great.”
Watch out whenever Bruce begins a sentence with "I honestly believe."
Few would disagree with such an appraisal of the forthcoming Barclays Center, future home of the Brooklyn Nets. Its designers at the award-winning SHoP architecture firm have presented what might be the most ambitious and aesthetically pleasing indoor arena ever constructed in the United States. Their assured touch, says Ratner, is apparent “in and out” of the venue.
article (page 77) / PDF version
NoLandGrab: Uh, didn't Ellerbe Becket design the inside of the arena?
Posted by eric at 11:01 AM
July 13, 2011
Strange Bedfellows: BAM And The Barclay Center
HYPERALLERGIC
by Liza Eliano
While the press release for the BAM-Barclays alliance promises to create “one of the most vibrant and unique cultural districts in the U.S.,” it is unclear what type of arts programming would be suitable for such a huge arena. The collaboration may provide an excellent opportunity to introduce new audiences to contemporary art and culture, but how much will BAM have to sacrifice its own creative vision to suit the arena’s needs? My fear is that we will get a Disneyfied version of BAM’s programming—especially considering BAM president Karen Brook Hopkin’s use of the word “spectacle” to describe the prospective works.
...While the verdict on BAM’s programming is not out yet, some Brooklynites are already less than optimistic about the collaboration. The billion-dollar Barclays Center is already an unpopular project among locals, including couple Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley whose documentary Battle for Brooklyn covers the six-year long war the community waged against Atlantic Yards. Many see BAM’s role at Barclays as a ploy to squash complaints from those who are not so eager to see a giant basketball arena bulldoze their home. Galinsky notes that the partnership is a “much greater benefit to Ratner from this P.R. perspective than to BAM.” The truth in his statement cannot be denied—while BAM will receive a curatorial fee, the institution will make no profit off of ticket sales for their performances.
NoLandGrab: Six, seven, eight years — who's counting?
Posted by eric at 5:44 PM
July 11, 2011
The Day: Barclays Center Progress
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill]
by Susan A. Rohwer
NY1 recently took a tour of the Barclays Center and the project’s residential tower with developer Bruce Ratner who talked about the construction progress. According to the piece, Mr. Ratner says things are on schedule for an opening next summer. Brownstowner also weighed in, citing a story by The Times from March that reported that the developer must start excavation on the tower by May 2013 “or pay up to $5 million in penalties for every year it falls behind.” There was no update on whether or not the tower will be prefabricated, as The Times reported in the March article.
Related coverage...
Brownstoner, Ratner Talks Atlantic Yards ETAs
Posted by eric at 12:29 PM
July 8, 2011
NY1 Exclusive: Barclays Center On Track To Open Next Summer
NY1
by Jeanine Ramirez
About half of the steel is now in place at the Barclays Center, as NY1 saw on a recent tour with developer Bruce Ratner.
"You see the piece all the way in the back — it's called the truss — that's going to be the beginning of the top of the arena,” said Ratner.
The roof is scheduled to be completed by winter. Many of the stands are already in place. It’s a dream finally becoming reality for Ratner, who has been planning to bring the Nets to Brooklyn since 2006.
"For all of us, it's a big whoosh moment,” said Ratner. “Something that's been long in coming."
NoLandGrab: The "whoosh" is actually the giant sucking sound of all the subsidies Bruce is collecting from the taxpayers. And Bruce has been "planning to Bring the Nets to Brooklyn" since 2003 — he had promised they'd be playing in Brooklyn in 2006.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, AY down the memory hole: NY1 reports Ratner's planned to bring the Nets since 2006
"It's the kind of access no one else has gotten," says NY1's Jeanine Ramirez self-congratulatingly, introducing a progress report headlined Barclays Center On Track To Open Next Summer.
(She lets Ratner wax enthusiastically about his deal with the Brooklyn Academy of Music, paying no heed to Michael Galinsky's essay, Don’t Let Atlantic Yards Developers Control the Narrative.)
Posted by eric at 10:58 AM
BARCLAYS TRYING TO CLASS UP THE JOINT WITH ANNOUNCED BAM INTEGRATION
F**ked in Park Slope
by J. Charles
So I'm pretty sure you all know how I feel about the BARCLAYS CENTER. Not. A. Fan. I take it that a decent number of you feel the same way. The Arena's baby daddy, Bruce Ratner, announced something last week that he's hoping will assuage all of you brownstone Brooklynites from not totally hating his downtown monstrosity.
Using the dark arts, Bruce Ratner convinced BAM to curate anywhere from 3-6 shows a year in the arena (I'm thinking Cirque du Sogay will be at least two of them), in an effort to bring some culture to what computer-generated mock-ups promise to be a baller's paradise (their words, not mine).
...Listen, BAM. I salute you for falling on that sword and trying to save this place from completely going down the shitter like every other modern arena seems to do. And maybe it will be a great opportunity to get some bigger performances into our neighborhood. But please Bruce, don't act like you're doing us any favors. Cause no matter how many times you dress this lady up, she's still a ho.
Posted by eric at 10:34 AM
July 6, 2011
Brooklyn Academy of Music to Curate Arts Programming at Barclays Center
Playbill.com
by Adam Hetrick
The Atlantic Yards development project has been a point of contention for many living in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood, but a new artistic partnership with the Brooklyn Academy of Music may help soothe tensions.
NoLandGrab: Or not.
Posted by eric at 12:37 AM
July 4, 2011
Sunday @ Atlantic Yards / Barclays Center
A Daily Photo
by brooklynpix
The Nets’ arena is growing by the day, and what’s most striking is that the sides of the building are going to be up against the roadway. It’s a narrow fit. The nearby intersections are hellish, but now traffic cops are frequently posted at the three main lights, so that helps.
[Emphasis, ours.]
NoLandGrab: Critics have been wondering what the proximity of the arena, especially to Atlantic Avenue, where it appears to be about 10 feet from the roadbed, means for security. Newark police close a street before, during and after games at the Prudential Center that is 25 feet from the arena.
Posted by eric at 10:52 AM
July 1, 2011
Cultural Circus? Mr. Ratner’s Attempt to Rechristen His Arena A “Cultural Center”
Noticing New York
Michael D.D. White takes an entertaining look at the recent "news" that Bruce Ratner will stage some "cultural events" in his arena.
One respect in which Ms. Hopkins and Mr. Ratner have not coordinated to get their act together (about what they are “coordinating”) is whether we are talking circuses here. Mr. Ratner is saying NO, Ms. Hopkins is saying YES.
In contradistinction to the “cultural institution” camouflage Ratner says he is interested in gaining with his wham-BAM press release, Ratner describes circuses as part of the commonplace perception people generally have of arenas from which he wants to move away:
“. . . . . then you have an arena, which, people think about sports and circus and so on”
But Ms. Hopkins contradicts Mr. Ratner by apparently envisioning that recommending circuses (pardon her French) may be exactly what BAM will do:
She said she expects the performances to be “on a very large scale, large nouvelle cirque kind of work, big dance kind of things, music.”
For those who might need it translated “cirque” is simply French for “circus,” whether “nouvelle” or not.
Posted by eric at 10:04 PM
Cultural Circus? Mr. Ratner’s Attempt to Rechristen His Arena A “Cultural Center”
Noticing New York
Michael D.D. White takes an entertaining look at the recent "news" that Bruce Ratner will stage some "cultural events" in his arena.
One respect in which Ms. Hopkins and Mr. Ratner have not coordinated to get their act together (about what they are “coordinating”) is whether we are talking circuses here. Mr. Ratner is saying NO, Ms. Hopkins is saying YES.
In contradistinction to the “cultural institution” camouflage Ratner says he is interested in gaining with his wham-BAM press release, Ratner describes circuses as part of the commonplace perception people generally have of arenas from which he wants to move away:
“. . . . . then you have an arena, which, people think about sports and circus and so on”
But Ms. Hopkins contradicts Mr. Ratner by apparently envisioning that recommending circuses (pardon her French) may be exactly what BAM will do:
She said she expects the performances to be “on a very large scale, large nouvelle cirque kind of work, big dance kind of things, music.”
For those who might need it translated “cirque” is simply French for “circus,” whether “nouvelle” or not.
Posted by eric at 10:04 PM
The official press release on the BAM-Barclays alliance, the imaginary new "cultural district," and reflections on Bruce Ratner's gift for irony
Atlantic Yards Report
Leave it to Norman Oder to point out the greatest irony of all.
"I always like to put things that are a little bit ironic together" was the money quote from Bruce Ratner in today's New York Times exclusive on the alliance in which the Brooklyn Academy of Music will bring three or four large-scale shows to fill empty dates at the Barclays Center arena.
The first irony is that this was seen as big news rather than as a question mark over the event projections for the arena. Remember, they've booked 150 shows and aim for more than 200 events a year.
The problem with those numbers is that a Moody's analyst in 2009 said its just-above-junk rating for $511 million in Barclays Center PILOT bonds depended in part on 225 events a year, and Forest City Ratner's original projection of 225 events depended on no new arena in Newark, though one has since opened.
...There's an even greater irony. The alliance with BAM could turn the Barlcays Center into the "18,000-seat opera house" that Assemblyman Roger Green once said Atlantic Yards protestors might embrace.
From Chris Smith's August 2006 New York magazine article, Mr. Ratner's Neighborhood:
Green isn’t quite so blunt, but he sees the divide over Atlantic Yards almost as starkly. “Here’s the question: If we were building an 18,000-seat opera house, would we get as much resistance? I don’t think so,” he says. “Basketball is like a secular religion for most Brooklynites. The opposition to the arena is actually coming from people who are new to Brooklyn, who lived in Manhattan, mostly. And who have a culture of opposing projects of this nature. People who opposed the West Side Highway project; people who opposed the Jets stadium; people who opposed a host of other things. Some of those families now live in Brooklyn. That’s the reality. There’s a class of people who are going to the opera. And there’s another class of folks who will go to a basketball game and get a cup of beer.”
Posted by eric at 10:39 AM
BAM and Barclays Center Strike Up Arts Partnership
WNYC
by Julia Furlan
Since The Times reported it, it must be news.
Grande jetés and encores may join the jabs and jump shots at Downtown Brooklyn's Barclays Center. The developers of the 18,000-seat arena announced on Thursday that they are looking around the corner to the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) for arts programming.
Related coverage...
NY Observer, Bruce Ratner, Arch-Ironist
The Observer's Matt Chaban sees through the irony.
“I always like to put things that are a little bit ironic together. So here you have a place like BAM, which is a great contemporary-arts cultural institution, and then you have an arena, which, people think about sports and circus and so on. And then you put them together, and then I think you’ve got something special.”
Indeed, Mr. Ratner has been a master of irony through decades of development:
- He had a rapidly gentrifying stretch of Brooklyn declared blighted, and then condemned.
- He has acquired a taste for hip-hop.
- He gets the light touch from the newspaper of record whose headquarters he built.
- He lives in Manhattan.
- He hired, then fired, Frank Gehry from the Atlantic Yards project after a lifetime of developing blasé buildings.
- Ratner’s rats.
(If these are not exactly ironic, well, neither is a cultural institution putting on shows in a sports arena, either.)
CBS New York, Nets’ Barclays Center Announces Partnership With Brooklyn Academy Of Music
“From concerts to family shows, from college sports to boxing, and, of course, to Nets basketball, we have already confirmed more than 150 events per year and we fully expect to host more than 200 events annually,” said Nets CEO Brett Yormark. “It makes great strategic sense to align with our neighbor, BAM, and continue to bring the best of everything to Brooklyn.”
AP via Washington Examiner, NYC's new Nets arena announces arts partnership
BAM President Karen Brooks Hopkins said the partnership will give BAM the opportunity to work on a giant canvas.
NoLandGrab: Almost like building a neighborhood practically from scratch.
Posted by eric at 10:23 AM
June 30, 2011
WELCOME TO BROOKLYN.
threecee via flickr
Barclays Center Arena construction & Jay Z ad
Flatbush Avenue at Dean Street
Prospect Heights
Brooklyn, New YorkNew billboard of Jay Z overlooking the construction of the Barclays Center Arena of Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 8:26 AM
June 29, 2011
Ratner feeds exclusive to Times, which hypes plan for BAM to bring three or four events to Atlantic Yards arena
Atlantic Yards Report
The article does quote a critic:
But as with all things related to Atlantic Yards, the cultural plans have their doubters. Michael Galinsky, the director with his wife, Suki Hawley, of the new documentary “Battle for Brooklyn,” which chronicles the years-long fight against the project, was skeptical that the Barclays Center would deliver on all its promises to the neighborhood.
He pointed to the changes in the original Atlantic Yards plan, from the departure of the architect Frank Gehry to the exclusion of a rooftop track to the number of jobs created.
“Any time the arts has more of a venue that’s a wonderful thing,” Mr. Galinsky said. “But the question then becomes at what cost to public process.” He added, “this is a much greater benefit to Ratner from this P.R. perspective than it is to BAM.”
Mr. Ratner said the partnership with the Brooklyn Academy was not meant to appease critics. “I don’t care,” he said, then corrected himself. “We care a tremendous amount about the community, but we don’t do it to get credit,” he said. “We must do stuff here because we think it’s good to do, not because it just happens to make a splash. Everything has to be substantive. Most of it has to be as substantive as possible.”
Actually, Ratner doesn't respond to Galinsky's substantive points, which should've led the reporter to be skeptical of the enterprise she'd embarked on. But they didn't fit the presumed storyline.
If Ratner does "care a tremendous amount about the community," maybe he should be asked about paying for rat abatement. Or how people are going to walk on narrow Dean Street sidewalks to the arena. But the Times didn't cover the meeting last night.
NoLandGrab: Go with your first answer, Bruce. You don't care.
Related coverage...
NetsDaily, In the Battle of Brooklyn Values, Nets Score a Cultural Victory
Noted arts & culture site NetsDaily calls it a coup for Bruce.
It's a tiny number of dates --the Nets have booked 150 out of a promised 200+ events so far-- but the arrangement will give the arena an advantage in the continuing war with critics over the value of putting an 18,000-seat sports facility in brownstone Brooklyn.
NLG: Uh, no.
Posted by eric at 9:49 PM
In Alliance, Nets Arena to Offer Arts
The New York Times
by Melena Ryzik
The munificent Bruce Ratner is going to give the people culture along with sub-par basketball.
It’s been a springboard for Brooklyn nostalgia, a debate about urban design and the politics of eminent domain and, depending on your perspective or basketball affiliation, a community uniter or divider. Now Atlantic Yards, the development that will bring the New Jersey Nets to downtown Brooklyn, will also be a cultural center.
The Barclays Center, the 18,000-seat arena at the heart of the project, will host performances by artists selected by the Brooklyn Academy of Music in a programming alliance between the two neighboring institutions, their directors said. The collaboration will include three or four shows a year and allow the academy to bring to Brooklyn work that would not fit into its theaters — the largest of which has 2,000 seats — with costs underwritten by the arena.
And since the taxpayers are underwriting the arena, ergo, the costs will be underwritten by the taxpayers.
“I always like to put things that are a little bit ironic together,” Bruce C. Ratner, the chairman and chief executive of Forest City Ratner Companies, the developer of the arena, said in an interview Tuesday.
Like Jobs, Housing & Hoops, perhaps?
Karen Brooks Hopkins, the academy’s president, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Ratner “called me and said that he really was hoping that this arena would be different from every arena, from the basic commercial fare.” She said she expects the performances to be “on a very large scale, large nouvelle cirque kind of work, big dance kind of things, music.”
...Ms. Brooks Hopkins would not specify the artists the academy was considering for the Barclays Center, except to say that they would be culled by the academy’s executive director, Joseph V. Melillo, from around the globe. “I know that he has seen a number of large-scale works in Asia that he is very enthusiastic about,” she said, adding that, in an effort to fill seats, “we’re not married to one aesthetic or one point of view or even one audience demographic.”
NoLandGrab: What a coincidence! Bruce saw a number — 498, to be exact — of large-scale ($500,000 each) investors in Asia, that he is very enthusiastic about.
Posted by eric at 7:41 PM
Atlantic Yards: The Future
Transitional New York
The "Atlantic Yards area of Brooklyn?" Really? And the station is already there.
With the completion of the Barclays Center, the Atlantic Yards area of Brooklyn will no longer be just for locals but it will be a place for people of New York, New Jersey, and all visitors. In the development, a new station will arise, Atlantic Yards Barclays Center, which connects 9 lines and the LIRR becoming one of the most accessible venues in New York.
NoLandGrab: "Minutes from the Brooklyn Bridge?" Not on game nights, unless you're on a bike. And why would they lead with the bridge location when it's alleged to be "transit-oriented development?"
Posted by eric at 9:44 AM
June 23, 2011
It's real -- and it'll be spectacular
Nets' future home is taking shape in Brooklyn; seeing will make you a believer
ESPN New York
by Rob Parker
Get ready for some absolutely absurd hyperbole.
On Wednesday afternoon, wearing a hard hat and following a couple of guides, I got a tour of the Barclays Center of Brooklyn, the future home of the Nets.
...It's no exaggeration, no hype. A sports writer for 25 years and someone who has covered major events in just about every arena and stadium in this country, most venues don't wow me. This one, unfinished and all, did.
This billion-dollar arena will be the darling of the NBA, a must-see for residents of and visitors to the Big Apple.
...For real, you could feel the energy and people buzzing around at lunchtime at the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, where this palace is being built.
NoLandGrab: That "energy" was most likely the gridlocked traffic, and the "buzzing" was probably caused by the carbon monoxide from all those exhaust pipes.
Posted by eric at 11:33 AM
June 16, 2011
Nash's nuance: a hoops star recognizes there may be some angles to the snazzy Brooklyn arena he can't fathom
Atlantic Yards Report
Phoenix Suns guard Steve Nash, an off-season New Yorker, was interviewed in am New York:
What do you think of the new arena going up in Brooklyn for the Nets? I think it's great. I'm speaking from the outside — you know, I don't live in Brooklyn or near where that arena would be, so I'm not sure how it would impact that community positively or negatively. But as far as our league, I think it's a great place to have a building and it's a great place to have a team. New York, and Brooklyn in particular, has such a great sports tradition and it's a great sports town. So I think it's a beautiful thing for our game.
At least Nash, who's one of the NBA's stellar citizens, knows what he doesn't know. Maybe he could start with Battle for Brooklyn.
Related content...
amNY, Q&A with two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash
Posted by eric at 10:59 PM
Will Barclays Center be a game changer on the arena scene?
amNY
by Max J. Dickstein
When the Barclays Center opens in September 2012 with three weeks of events ahead of the relocating Nets' basketball season, the new complex is expected to rival New York’s other sports venues for spectator dollars enough to alter the dynamic among the area's sports and entertainment venues. Even a winning Nets debut in the 2012-13 season — seen as a key factor for the young venue in attracting ticket-buyers and corporate sponsors — would account for only about 50 dates, but arena managers say they've booked more than 100 other events, including monthly boxing matches; tennis, college basketball and hockey games; and family shows and concerts — with plans for more than 200 events annually.
“Obviously people are going to want to go the Barclays Center at first glance because it’s new,” said NYU sports business professor Wayne McDonnell. “But you’re going to want to sustain an audience.
“If [Nets part-owner] Jay-Z does five sold-out nights there, that’s unbelievable,” McDonnell added. “But then you go from that to Long Island University playing Wagner College in a hockey game — it’s not going to sustain it.”
Posted by eric at 4:11 PM
June 1, 2011
Nets Pitch Self-Contained Brooklyn Arena. Sure, That'll Be Great for the Neighborhood
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
We repost this in full from our friends at DDDB.
$99 - $1,500 tickets to see the Nets? That's affordable? Don't worry, on StubHub they will be.
2012-13 Nets Begin Pitching Premium Seats
The Barclays Center in Brooklyn still lacks a roof, seats and a basketball court. But the Nets are already pitching their fans on tickets in their new home, which is expected to open in September 2012.
On Thursday the Nets will begin selling "all-access" tickets to the general public, which include unlimited food and drink. About 4,400 seats in the lower bowl will be included, with tickets from $99 to $1,500. Nets season-ticket holders in these seats will also get first crack at tickets to other events, including concerts, boxing and college basketball.
"We want customers to come for more than the Nets," said Fred Mangione, the chief marketing officer of the Nets. "For us, the question is how we add value."
...Tickets will include unlimited food and drink and the customers will come "for more than the Nets." Sounds to us like this doesn't bode well for sports bars and clubs that are clamoring to open up next to the arena.
And the unlimited drinks don't bode well for the stoops, sidewalks and olfactories in the surrounding neighborhoods.
...The Nets are introducing a new advertising campaign to jump-start their ticket sales. The ads will include pictures of Brooklyn landmarks like the Brooklyn Bridge and Coney Island. Famous Brooklyn natives will also appear in the ads.
We'll be very interested to see which ones, but we're sure Nelson George won't be one of them.
Related content...
Off the Dribble (New York Times NBA Blog), 2012-13 Nets Begin Pitching Premium Seats
Posted by eric at 4:53 PM
May 30, 2011
Goldman Sachs buys Google ads to promote its role in getting Louisville arena built; what about Brooklyn?
Atlantic Yards Report
Attached to a 5/7/11 Boston Globe review of sportswriter Robert Lipsyte's new memoir was the advertisement at right, in which financial behemoth Goldman Sachs promotes its role in the new arena in Louisville, KY.
Presumably such Google ads are being bought wholesale, attached to other sports coverage.
"See how the construction of a new arena helps businesses downtown," states Goldman, pointing to a web page and film, with the summary:
Now, new businesses are opening, new jobs have been created and downtown Louisville is more vibrant than ever, with new restaurants and services available to local residents and visitors.
What about Brooklyn?
Will Goldman, which arranged the bond financing for the Atlantic Yards arena (aka Barclays Center), promote its role in the new facility? Likely.
But the promotion will have to be more subtle. New businesses? Sports bars, sure, but local residents surely have enough restaurants and services.
New jobs? Surely not nearly as many as promised during the heady days of "Jobs, Housing, and Hoops."
New housing? Not Goldman's problem.
Posted by eric at 10:46 AM
May 22, 2011
May 21st: The Ratner
BRIT IN BROOKLYN
Here's one reason to be sorry that the world did not end yesterday, courtesy of photographer Adrian Kinloch.
 |
Today I took one last stroll around Ratner’s vast skeletal construction at Atlantic Yards. Too bad the Barclays Bank Nets arena won’t be ready for the Rapture.
Posted by eric at 1:42 PM
May 18, 2011
Consultant says arena one month ahead of schedule, transit connection two months; what about the Carlton Avenue Bridge?
Atlantic Yards Report
According to the latest Site Observation Report, dated 5/16/11 and based on a 3/24/11 site observation, on the Barclays Center arena construction, produced by Merritt & Harris, consultants to the real estate lending and investment community, the arena is still ahead of schedule.
The report indicates that the arena is one month ahead of schedule, based on cash flow projections, and the Transit Connection to the Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street station is about two months ahead of schedule.
Note, however, as mentioned below, last month the substantial completion date and final completion date for the arena had been moved back.
According to the graphics below (click to enlarge), spending on the arena, and presumably work at the site, is expected to increase markedly in the next year.
Posted by eric at 10:38 AM
May 17, 2011
8 BALLING A BALLER'S PARADISE: AMEX PRESALE FOR BARCLAY CENTER ANNOUNCED
F**ked in Park Slope
FIPS once again consults its Magic 8 Ball regarding Atlantic Yards.
According to BUMPERSHINE, American Express is having a pre-sale for an All-Access Pass to the Nets 2012-2013 season in their new stadium, the Barclay Center (or as I like to call it: the giant steel shit Bruce Ratner took on us all). And there is an actual date! September 28, 2012!
...I thought I would turn to my modern Delphi, the Magic 8 Ball) and see what it thought of our little cluster fuck to be: (I say again, like I say every time, I do not reshake. Whatever the 8 ball responds, I write!)
Magic 8 Ball How are you?
M8B: Most likely.Great! So let's dive right in. Do you think the Barclay Center is the WORST. IDEA. EVER?
M8B: You may rely on it.Do you think the North Slope will suffer because it's close(ish) proximity?
M8B: Yes.How so? Traffic on event nights? Noise pollution? A systematic extermination of bike lanes?
M8B: You may rely on it.
...Will the Nets suck just as hard in Brooklyn as they did in New Jersey?
M8B: You may rely on it.
...M8B are you really excited to see other family-friendly events like Sesame Street on Ice and the latest Cirque Du Sogay when they roll into town?
M8B: Very doubtful.Yeah, me neither. Do you miss Freddy's in it's old location?
M8B: It is decidedly so.Me too. Oh well.
Related coverage...
BUMPERSHINE, Brooklyn Nets Amex Presale Info, Barclays Center Set To Open in Sep 2012
If the massive steel skeleton on Flatbush and Atlantic wasn’t enough of a reminder, the nightmare of almost every South Brooklyn resident just got one step close to reality today. Bruce Ratner’s much reviled Barclays Center is scheduled to open on September 28, 2012, at least according to this e-mail blast that I received from American Express this morning.
Posted by eric at 11:34 AM
May 16, 2011
NetsDaily Off-Season Report #5
NetsDaily
Some wishful thinking from the New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets fantasy site.
There's "Bark", a new hot dog place near Barclays Center where Billy King, Bobby Marks, Bruce Ratner and Brook Lopez dined before checking out the arena. No one's saying there's a connection and "Bark" is a perfectly reasonable name for a neat little restaurant featuring hot dogs, but that arena right around the corner could wind up being known as "The Barc" or even "The Bark" ... as in "Who Let the Dogs Out?" There's also the Best Western Arena Hotel, down Atlantic Avenue. It advertises itself as close to "the NBA Barclay Arena." And we haven't even mentioned the (at least) three sports bars planned for the streets around the arena.
NoLandGrab: And locals are almost as thrilled about those sports bars as they are about the arena.
Posted by eric at 9:30 AM
here it comes...
threecee via flickr
|
6th Avenue & Bergen Street
looking north along 6th
Prospect Heights
Brooklyn, New YorkThe cranes on the construction site of the Barclays Center Arena of Atlantic Yards loom over the homes on 6th Avenue. This residential block, shared with the NYPD 78th precinct (on the right), will be one of the most directly impacted by the 18,000-seat arena. The southeast corner of the arena will be at the end of this block, at the intersection of 6th & Dean Street.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Tracy Collins: photos of blocks adjacent to the arena, and the arena from above
Photographer Tracy Collins has been shooting the neighborhood around the arena site for years. Here are some of his latest photos.
Posted by steve at 12:58 AM
May 13, 2011
Barclays Center Rendering Near Identical to Existing Arena
Curbed
by Bilal Khan
So it looks like the "renderings" of the Barclays Center at Atlantic Yards that we showed you earlier this week might have something slightly sinister going on with them, at least according to some Atlantic Yards foes. The folks at No Land Grab astutely pointed out that the interior shot of the arena looks practically identical to the Consesco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Is something fishy or is this just nitpicking? In any case, the developers just gave opponents a lot more ammo in their tireless crusade to malign everything-Atlantic Yards.
NoLandGrab: Nitpicking? World-class Frank Gehry-designed arena or Indianapolis-class Ellerbe Becket-designed arena — you decide!
Posted by eric at 11:34 AM
May 11, 2011
One of these things is just like the other
Apologies to Sesame Street for that headline, but the alleged future "Most Exciting Venue" in the NBA looks suspiciously exactly like the existing NBA venue in Indianapolis.
Barclays Center:
 |
Conseco Fieldhouse:
 |
Brooklyn was promised Frank Gehry, but it appears that the residential buildings aren't the only ones that will be pre-fab at Atlantic Yards. Not fab at all.
NoLandGrab: OK, in fairness, the American and Canadian flags are flip-flopped in the two arenas. So they're not exactly the same.
Posted by eric at 1:35 PM
May 10, 2011
New Arena Renderings Revealed; Architect Says Barclays Center To Be The NBA's "Most Exciting Venue"
NetsDaily
Now there's an unbiased opinion for you.
AECOM, corporate parent of architect Ellerbe & Becket, posted new renderings of the arena on its website recently, featuring views of the interior previously unseen. Among them: a dramatic vista of the arena bowl filled as well as a view from another angle. There are also renderings of the arena dressed up for a concert, the main concourse, a champagne bar, an exclusive club and a new view of the main entrance.
The web site said of the arena, scheduled to open September 28, 2012:: "This promises to be the most exciting venue in the NBA ... one of the most intimate seating configurations ever designed into a modern multi-purpose arena, with unparalleled sightlines."
Posted by eric at 12:28 PM
May 4, 2011
Gate Agape at Atlantic Yards
Brooklyn (the Borough)
by Nicole Brydson
An open construction gate leads to some very outdated "official" NBA info.
So we recently noticed the fence was ajar at the construction site of the new Nets Arena in the burgeoning BAM Cultural District. Here's what we saw: basically, it's a big hole in the ground with some steel sticking out.
I've heard some speculation of whether the stadium will be completed in time for the planned 2012 season, so I snapped a few shots of the progress. NBA.com announced ticket sales information for back on March 30, saying that the top of the line passes had sold out, but "remaining premium seats range in price from $99 to $1,500 per seat." However, the site's Atlantic Yards FAQ (screen shot) still states that tickets will go on sale in Fall 2009 and that...
The new Frank Gehry-designed arena will be located at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, an area in close proximity to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, and the Brooklyn Museum.
...Time to update, folks! And maybe mind the gates.
Photo: Nicole Brydson/Brooklyn (the Borough)
Posted by eric at 11:40 AM
May 2, 2011
“Welcome To Brooklyn” Where the Game Is Frivolous Spending On Boondoggle Basketball Arenas- Getting the Image Right
Noticing New York
Just the other day we were out crossing the Pulaski Bridge that connects North Brooklyn to Queens when lo and behold what did we espy but a “Welcome to Brooklyn” sign set up to flog the Forest City Ratner/Mikhail Prokhorov Nets basketball arena to the traffic going to and fro!
The sign was doubled-sided so it presented the same “Welcome to Brooklyn” message whether you were coming to or leaving Brooklyn (the shot above is the “Welcome to Brooklyn” you see when leaving Brooklyn- the shot below is what you see when arriving), but we found ourselves transfixed more by a second anomaly of this image that wasn’t gotten right: The picture is the really preposterous old rendering of the arena which by now ought to be discredited in the minds of most people. I am surprised it hasn’t been discarded. . . .
. . . For one thing, the preposterous old rendering used in the billboard still has, in the background, the notorious ghostly “vaportechture” that stands in for the buildings that aren’t being built, while blotting out both the real neighborhood being destroyed and the developer-created parking lots that are likely to be around for decades. The rendering also substituted a whoosh of orange glow for the inevitable slow-moving traffic jams that will surround the arena.
Click through for Michael D.D. White's reflections on this latest Nets ad campaign, and his suggested alternative version.
Posted by eric at 9:28 PM
April 28, 2011
Deron Williams, Billy King Tour Barclays Center Site
NBA.com
Give the NBA credit for this — at least they locate the arena correctly in Prospect Heights, and not "downtown Brooklyn."
After lunch in Manhattan, Nets general manager Billy King and point guard Deron Williams traveled into Brooklyn's Prospect Heights neighborhood to visit the Barclays Center construction site. The visit marked the first for each of them, and the duo soaked up information from Forest City Ratner Companies and Hunt Construction Group officials, querying them about everything from layout and design to the planned parking situation. Walking down to what will eventually become center court of the new arena, you could see each of them begin to envision the future.
"It's cool to see the beams up," Williams said. "You hear about how it's going to look and how it's going to be finished. But it's good to come and see how the progress is. You can kind of start picturing it, what it's going to be like, see the layout of things. And it's good to see the area – I hadn't been to this area yet. It's different. This is in the heart of the city. It's kind of like the Garden. It's the same feel. It's special."
NoLandGrab: Must be all the new bars sprouting up that make the area feel "kind of like the Garden."
Posted by eric at 9:47 PM
April 22, 2011
Question Revisited: How Craftily Close Did Forest City Ratner Skate On Thin Ice of Securities Law Violation With Non-Promise of a Hockey Arena?
Noticing New York
With recent confirmatory revelations that the design of the Forest City Ratner/Mikhail Prokhorov arena was definitely not intended to accommodate a professional hockey team, it is worth circling back to examine again the language included in the official statement to sell the bonds that strongly conveyed the impression that it could do so.
Atlantic Yards Report wrote that Bob Sanna, Forest City Ratner Executive VP for Construction, just recently told a Pratt Institute School of Architecture audience that the arena was not intended for hockey team use. (See: Tuesday, April 19, 2011, Forest City executive says shrinking arena to preclude major league hockey was conscious choice, downplays modular construction as "research project".) Specifically, Mr. Sanna told the Pratt Institute School of Architecture audience that when the arena was shrunk, undergoing what he characterized as “a complete redesign”:
"we made some pretty deliberate decisions early on: we weren't going to have a [professional] hockey team."
That’s a confirmation of something that seemed pretty obvious looking at the schematics: the redesigned arena is far too small to accommodate a standard professional size hockey rink.
But what were the buyers of the bonds for the arena told in the information that was part of the official statement, the disclosure document used to sell bonds? They were told:
For purposes of this analysis, it has not been assumed that the New York Islanders would relocate to the Barclays Center.
...OK, that language says that it has “NOT” been “assumed that the New York Islanders would relocate to the Barclays Center” but doesn’t it by any reasonable standard imply that, with luck, there is a legitimate possibility Islanders or another professional hockey team could decide to relocate to the arena?
...As such, if the bonds for the arena one day default, as they could, will bond holders be able to sue on the basis that this statement misleadingly misrepresented the arena’s potential uses and revenue sources and therefore its value? If not, the non-positive statement at least says something negative about Forest City Ratner’s business ethics in its willingness to convey misimpressions with craftily constructed non-promises.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Did elimination of pro hockey option at Barclays Center deceive bondholders?
Posted by eric at 11:13 AM
April 12, 2011
Brooklyn Broadside: A Presidential Convention at the Barclays Center?
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Dennis Holt
Somebody's been sneaking an extra glass of sherry (or two).
Sept. 28, 2012. Mark that date on your calendar.
If, like just about everybody, you don’t have a 2012 calendar yet, write it down and put it in a safe place.
Better yet, it is not too early to do some serious long-range planning. That admonishment is directed at the borough president, the mayor, the governor, our two U.S. senators, the Brooklyn congressional delegation (minus the guy from Staten Island), Forest City Ratner, the Brooklyn Nets (or whatever) and the National Basketball Association.
Those who pay attention to such things will note that Sept. 28, 2012 is the scheduled date for the official opening of the Barclays Center, Brooklyn’s new basketball arena. Brooklyn, at long last, will have once more a major-league professional franchise.
Wait. We thought the Nets were moving into the Barclays Center.
Thoughts are already being more or less certified for a three-week gala of opening events. This is only proper. What is also proper is that President Obama should be the premier ribbon cutter, or the first to make the first “official” basket.
There are two reasons why. One is obvious. He is the basketball player in chief. He plays the game all the time. It is not at all improper to think of the president officiating at the opening of the nation’s newest, and probably most compelling indoor sports arena.
(It is also not improper to, sometime in the future, contemplate holding the Democratic National Convention at Barclays Center, but that is a different mission for a different day.)
There is another reason, less obvious, but more important than the fact that Obama has a good jump shot. By that date, the 2012 presidential election will be in full swing, and we know who the Democratic candidate will be.
NoLandGrab: We're going to go out on a limb here and predict that the last place President Obama will be cutting a ribbon six weeks before the 2012 presidential election is on an eminent-domain abusing, subsidy-sucking, back-room-deal hatched billion-dollar boondoggle that'll be home to a horrendous basketball team owned by a Russian oligarch.
Posted by eric at 11:03 PM
Consultant: arena remains ahead of schedule, but substantial completion date nudged back, final completion date pushed back
Atlantic Yards Report
According the 4/4/11 Site Observation Report on the Barclays Center arena construction, produced by Merritt & Harris, consultants to the real estate lending and investment community, the arena is still ahead of schedule.
Indeed, as the graphic indicates, actual spending (white dot) exceeds projected spending (black dot), though it's still early days.
 |
Falling behind?
But other data indicate that the arena is falling slightly behind earlier predictions:
- the substantial completion date has been nudged back two weeks from 8/12/12 to 8/27/12
- a final completion date, involving punch list work and subcontractor close-outs, has been pushed back three-and-a-half months, from 2/28/13 to 6/14/13.
None of this jeopardizes the announced arena grand opening date of 9/28/12, a month after the substantial completion date. However, if additional glitches crop up, it may get tougher for arena promoters to fulfill this plan, as stated in a 4/5/11 press release:
Prior to the official Grand Opening on September 28, the Barclays Center plans to use the first several weeks of September 2012 to host public events and tours to welcome and introduce the Brooklyn community to its new building.
Posted by eric at 7:31 AM
April 11, 2011
Nets Future Brooklyn Home Starts Taking Shape
WNYC Radio
by Arun Venugopal
The Barclays Center, the 18,500 seat arena at the center of the still-contentious Atlantic Yards project, is slowly taking shape in Brooklyn. Last week, the New Jersey Nets management announced September 28, 2012, as the opening date for the arena — the team's future home in Brooklyn.
...For some residents, the construction of the Barclays Center represents a mix of day-to-day nuisances and long-term concerns.
Edwin Barreto lives next to the construction site and wishes the arena had been located further out in Brooklyn, perhaps closer to Red Hook. He's been frustrated by the loss of parking spaces, but is even more worried about what will happen, once the arena opens and thousands of outsiders start streaming into the neighborhood.
"What's going to happen too is all those people that go in there and drink that beer, they're going to be coming out here, peeing all over the corners, peeing on people's cars," said Barreto. "I've seen it happen in Newark."
NoLandGrab: Putting an arena in Red Hook, with its dearth of transit access, would've made a bad idea even worse. Mr. Barreto is wrong about that, and let's hope he not right about the other thing — though we fear he is.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Arena: "good for Brooklyn, bad for the neighborhood"?
The article closes thusly:
His friend, Sean Carnegie, walking to his son's basketball practice, saw pros and cons in the location of the arena.
"All in all, it's cool," said Carnegie. "It's good for Brooklyn, bad for the neighborhood."
The choice of a this as a closing quote implies that the reporter considers this a legitimate summary.
Indeed, it captures some of the ambiguity: those closest to the arena site will bear the brunt of its impacts, while those farther away, to the extent it fits their pocketbooks, may avail themselves of sports and entertainment events.
Still, it's unlikely that the man-on-the-street assessment of "good for Brooklyn" factors in the elements of a full cost-benefit analysis, including direct subsidies, tax breaks, and the absence of (or delays in) promised project benefits.
Posted by eric at 10:01 AM
April 8, 2011
Nets CEO on New Arena
Fox Business
Brett Yormark returns to his favorite media stomping ground, but for a change, the anchors — unlike Alexis Glick — actually express a wee bit of skepticism.
NoLandGrab: The Nets "will be the new Dodgers?" Sure, "the boys of winter?"
Related coverge...
Atlantic Yards Report, On Fox, Nets CEO Yormark calls Brooklyn "fourth-largest market," plays coy on team name
It's always fun to watch Nets Sports and Entertainment CEO Brett Yormark spin, and in an interview April 6 on Fox Business, he did just that.
...Yormark said he "likes" the team name "Brooklyn Nets" and called it is the "working title."
But he said it's not a done deal, so we should wait for an announcement "in the next month or two."
Surely he knows. As I've previously stated, I suspect they're just withholding confirmation of "Brooklyn Nets" for the publicity value.
Hockey?
The interviewer asked if the new arena would accommodate hockey, such as the New York Islanders, currently playing in the antiquated Nassau Coliseum.
Yormark called it a "a multipurpose venue" and said they were open to many events. "We would love the Islanders to play a couple of games at the Barclays Center," he said, noting that the Long Island Rail Road could directly deliver Islanders fans.
He didn't say that the arena would be too small for NHL-level hockey.
Posted by eric at 11:51 AM
A green arena? Barclays Center pursuing LEED certification, would gain credit for access to public transit, but no demerit for onsite surface parking
Atlantic Yards Report
According to the latest Site Observation Report by Merritt & Harris, the real estate consultant to the arena PILOT Bond Trustee, dated 3/3/11 and based on a visit 1/31/11, the builders of the Barclays Center are trying to gain LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification.
...Wouldn't a truly green arena have no on-site parking, especially given the much-touted advantage of a major transit hub?
And shouldn't there be LEED points subtracted for having a surface parking lot last not the initially predicted three years, but much longer?
Posted by eric at 10:32 AM
Welcome to the "Haier Store area," as arena block sub-location demarcated by future opportunities to "interact with the Haier brand"
Atlantic Yards Report
From the ATLANTIC YARDS CONSTRUCTION UPDATE, weeks of March 28, 2011 through April 10, 2011, produced by Forest City Ratner and circulated by the Empire State Development Corporation:
Work related to the SOE [Support of Excavation] installation and related excavation at the Haier Store area, located at the Pacific Street terminus of the Arena Block, which is located at the 6th avenue & Pacific Street side of the arena, will continue during this reporting period.
(Emphasis added)
The Haier Store area? Oh, remember the 1/11/09 press release headlined Haier America Announced as Long-Term Partner for the Barclays Center in Brooklyn:
East Rutherford, NJ—Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment (BSE), an affiliate of Nets Sports and Entertainment, LLC, today announced that Haier America, a national leader for home appliances and digital consumer electronics products, has become a long-term partner for the planned Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
The “Haier Experience Store,” which will be part of the Barclays Center and accessible to the public from outside of the arena during event and non-event days, will provide an opportunity for patrons to interact with the Haier brand and its array of products. Haier will also receive a fully integrated marketing platform within the arena and will be a sponsor of the NETS. The sponsorship alliance will provide Haier with a multitude of assets to extend its growth in North America.
Posted by eric at 10:20 AM
April 7, 2011
Nets/Barclays media events galore!
Atlantic Yards Report
Mayor Mike Bloomberg buys season tickets.
Nets player/mascot spend a couple of hours cleaning up Prospect Park (press release).
New billboard implies Deron Williams will remain with Nets when they move to Brooklyn.
Posted by eric at 11:19 AM
April 6, 2011
No Sleep Till Barclays
HOOPSWORLD
Wow, Forest City's Linda Chiarelli is raising the bar for inane Atlantic Yards blather. Are you up to the challenge, Brett Yormark and Bruce Bender?
"The building is a building of its own," Forest City Ratner Companies senior vice president and deputy director of construction Linda Chiarelli, told HOOPSWORLD.
But as unfamiliar as the exterior may seem, the interior evolved from arenas currently in use. In fact, some Pacers fans might find themselves right at home in the Barclays Center.
"We looked at dozens of arenas examining bowl shape more than anything else," Chiarelli said. "The bowl, I would say it's probably he Conseco Field House bowl that inspired the bowl shape."
..."This is the opposite [of the Izod Center]," Chiarelli said. "It's a very intimate bowl. That was the goal here to establish that level of intimacy."
You mean like the rendering at right by Freddy's Donald O'Finn?
Not content to let Chiarelli steal the spotlight, HOOPSWORLD gets into the act with its own nonsense.
If a New Jersey resident wants to remain a fan of the Nets, they won't have to cut through Southern Manhattan to drive to the game. Traffic can be avoided by simply driving through Staten Island and over the Verrazano Bridge.
Yup, no traffic at all near Atlantic and Flatbush. Drive on over!
No stadium is perfect, but the Nets have already positioned themselves to be a cheaper, and possibly more convenient way for New Yorkers to see the NBA.
If by "cheaper," they mean "more than double the $60 average for tickets to see the woeful Nets at Newark’s Prudential Center" and "among the NBA’s highest" priced tickets, then yes, "cheaper" it is.
article [Scroll down for story]
Posted by eric at 10:42 AM
Kim Kardashian's Boyfriend Is Ready For Brooklyn Nets-NY Knicks Rivalry
Gothamist
by Jen Chung
 |
Dumb & Dumber?
Kris Humphries, a forward for the NJ Nets and also boyfriend of Kim Kardashian, visited the Barclays Center, the former site of a Frank Gehry-designed sports arena (now it's something that look like
an airplane hangera modified airplane hanger), where his team is supposed to play. In fact, Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark, who happens to be the Nets CEO, says the area will open on September 28, 2012. And Humphries can't wait.He told reporters, "Hopefully we can get everyone in Brooklyn to come out and support us and build the tradition the Knicks have... There is a rivalry now. Just think about what it will be like out in Brooklyn." And the Wall Street Journal's Jason Gay also attended the press event.
...According to Gay, "[Humphries] said he wasn't sure if he would live in Brooklyn, though he'd heard "there are some real great places to stay."
Related coverage...
Arena Digest, Barclays Center set to open for 2012 season: Developer
The bigger issue for many locals: what happened to the rest of the ambitious Atlantic Yards complex. The arena was designed as an anchor for a larger development of office and retail towers, initially designed by architecture legend Frank Gehry. Along the way the arena design was downscaled, and the other towers put on hold.
Indefinitely, as it turns out.
Queens Crap, $300M down the drain, people evicted for nothing?
Posted by eric at 10:24 AM
April 5, 2011
Turning Hipsters Into Hoopsters
The Wall Street Journal
by Jason Gay
The New Jersey Nets—currently rattling around the trunk of the NBA's Eastern Conference—are coming soon to the magnificent birthplace of Lena Horne and Woody Allen and the adopted home of a lot of dudes who can't stop yapping about the final LCD Soundsystem show. (To take every lazy Brooklyn stereotype to the extreme, please read this story while chomping an artisanal pickle. And growing a mustache. And converting your Satan bike to a single speed.)
This wasn't a Nets game, just a showcase with some steel and mud to excite the media. After years of community controversy—and some bad feeling still simmering—it actually is happening: NBA basketball is coming to Brooklyn, to the busy intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. Monday it was announced that the Barclays Center is set to open for business on September 28, 2012.
On hand was Nets forward Kris Humphries, who was fitted for a white hardhat and asked to pose for photographs of the growing coliseum. He wore a navy blue Brooklyn sweatshirt, and after he walked down a muddy ramp to the court level, someone pointed out to him where the center of the court was going to be.
...He said he wasn't sure if he would live in Brooklyn, though he'd heard "there are some real great places to stay." He said he didn't mind if parents wanted to bring their babies into Park Slope bars.
OK, just kidding about that last part.
Related coverage...
The Brooklyn Paper, Save the date! Barclays Center to open on Sept. 28, 2012
After years of false starts, economic malaise, local protests, lawsuits and atrocious basketball, New Jersey Nets officials finally unveiled some positive team news on Monday: The Barclays Center will be open on Sept. 28, 2012.
The grand opening of the $1-billion arena now under construction at the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues will launch three weeks of concerts and events, according to Brett Yormark, the Nets chief executive officer, who led nattily attired team executives, the media, and Nets power forward Kris Humphries through the mud for a tour of the work site.
“It’s all coming together,” he said.
The grand opening will be preceded by public events and tours to introduce Brooklyn to the arena before the Nets 2012-13 season begins.
“The community will sample it first,” Yormark said.
CBS New York, Opening Date Set For Barclays Center In Brooklyn
For the past five years, the team has been trying to make inroads in Brooklyn, or, as Yormark says, they’ve been seeding the brand.
“It’s very important for our players to be very visible here, to be engaged, to give back,” he told WCBS 880′s Peter Haskell.
NoLandGrab: Brett Yormark is incapable of uttering a single sentence that's free of marketing-speak platitudes. Seriously, the guy sounds like a first-year MBA student.
Atlantic Yards Report, At arena site media event, Nets forward Humphries mouths bromides, Yormark claims Barclays Center "is about the community"
It was just two years ago that Nets guard Devin Harris stepped up as the face of the team's move to Brooklyn, replacing the departed Richard Jefferson, who outlasted the original faces, Jason Kidd and Vince Carter.
Harris is gone now, replaced by Deron Williams, and yesterday, at a Nets media event held at the Barclays Center construction site to highlight the September 28, 2012 opening date, the player mouthing Brooklyn bromides was forward Kris Humphries.
Read on for Norman Oder's breakdown of the stories above.
Posted by eric at 10:58 AM
April 1, 2011
First Tickets On Sale For Nets Games in Brooklyn
Season ticket holders get first dibs on the "All Access" tickets at the 18,000-seat Barclays Center
Park Slope Patch
by Stephen Brown
There are 100 suites in the $1 billion arena, including 16 “brownstone suites” that cost around $450,000. The least expensive of the bunch will be the “loft suites,” which cost between $215,000 and $300,000.
Nets spokesman Barry Baum added that only one brownstone suite was still available, and that 10 suites designed by Jay-Z — who holds a small stake in the team — will go on the market in the fall.
NoLandGrab: We suggest renaming the "brownstone" and "loft" suites "Pre-Fab" and "Modular," respectively.
Posted by eric at 11:38 AM
Brooklyn Arena On Track For 2012 Opening
NY1
by Jeanine Ramirez
Nets CEO Brett Yormark gave NY1 a tour of the site. He says the construction is right on track for a 2012 opening when the Nets, for the first time, will play in Brooklyn.
"They've been underserved in the area of sports and entertainment for years. Since the dodgers left in 1957. We're the home team. We're coming back. And we're giving them something to root for," said Nets CEO Brett Yormark.
Thank goodness. We've been bored out of our wits for the last 54 years.
"We're bringing the circus here and Disney on Ice. We have a college franchise we're developing with IMG College for lots of great college sports with basketball and hockey," Yormark said.
If it's not Yormark's usual hyperbole, that may be some news. There's been some question as to the arena's suitability for ice hockey.
Posted by eric at 10:45 AM
March 31, 2011
Brooklyn hoopla
It's official: Net tickets go on sale
NY Post
by Rich Calder
Tickets went on sale yesterday for NBA basketball — in Brooklyn!
As the New Jersey Nets’ future home at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues starts to take shape after years of delays, the team began offering current season ticket holders the first crack at locking in luxury accommodations in the new digs.
The 4,000 "All-Access" premium seats being offered at the rapidly rising, 18,000-seat Barclays Center in Prospect Heights, will run from $99 a game for lower level to $1,500 for courtside — or $4,356 to $66,000 for a full season.
...But to get the premium "All Access" benefits, fans will have to commit to buying them for the first three years — with the prices locked in.
...Yormark said the average Nets ticket at Barclays Center would run $132 — more than double the $60 average for tickets to see the woeful Nets at Newark’s Prudential Center... The new Nets prices are expected to be among the NBA’s highest in their inaugural season in Brooklyn and comparable to what the Knicks will charge at Madison Square Garden.
NoLandGrab: Now there's a bargain.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Nets start selling tickets for Brooklyn 2012; prices up; no PSLs (personal seat licenses), despite 2006 prediction; "Grand Opening Weekend" planned
Notably, the Nets no longer plan Personal Seat Licenses (PSLs), which in both internal Forest City Ratner documents and a KPMG report from 2006 were supposed to bring $20 million in over two years in revenue from 4500 PSLs ($4444 each over two years).
That's likely a reflection of the recession, the drop-off in luxury spending, and the uncertainty of the product on the court.
Instead of PSL, three-year deal?
One commenter on NetsDaily observed:
Three year commitment = way out of PSL
I had my meeting on Monday at the Barclay’s Showroom and it was a great experience. Top notch, first class.
But the pricing is through the roof for the seats I’m in now. Like $300 more per game, per seat. Of course I’m sitting center court, 7th row, so I guess that will be expected.
In the end, I may actually be priced out of this place if I don’t want to be in the rafters. Think about the starting price of $99 for the All Access Pass ticket sections. That’s $99 per game, per seat so basically $200 per game x 44 games (3 preseason) = $8,800 × 3 year commitment = $26,400.
You are signing a contract to pay $26,400 for 2 seats for the next 3 years without knowing what the product will be on the floor.
To me, that’s just too much at this point. Maybe something will change, or I’ll have to get comfy with sitting upstairs.
The New York Times, Nets Begin Selling Tickets for New Arena
The Nets’ chief executive, Brett Yormark, said the team started sales to gauge how many season-ticket holders would re-up for the move to Brooklyn. The passes will be offered in June to fans who do not hold season tickets, and the rest of the tickets will be available in the fall.
CBS New York, Nets Begin Selling Tickets For 2012-13 Season In Brooklyn
“Our number one priority in pricing our tickets was to ensure that Nets games are accessible to everyone,” Yormark said.
The Brooklyn Paper, Nets are selling tickets — to Brooklyn games
“We kept fans in mind, but obviously, we have a business to run,” Yormark said.
Posted by eric at 10:54 AM
March 28, 2011
Nets' new home moving forward
Bergen Record
by John Brennan
The spot that will one day be the site of the Barclays Center basketball court is a mud patch, and only about a quarter of the arena’s circumference is apparent.
But 12 months after a high profile groundbreaking for the $1 billion arena near downtown Brooklyn, concrete and steel testify to the reality of the Nets’ pending exit from New Jersey.
The first of the arena’s halfdozen large roof trusses was erected 10 days ago, now defining the height of the 675,000square-foot facility for the many passers-by. About 30 percent of the steel is already up, and the foundation is 70 percent complete, arena officials say.
The precast steps will be put in place within the next 30 days or so, giving a sense of the bowl to curious neighbors. The first part of the facade is expected to be in place by mid-July, and the roof should be in place by year’s end. If construction continues at this pace, the arena is likely to open on schedule in mid-2012 — just months before the Nets move in that fall.
Guess who's PUMPED! about the advent of the arena.
Nets chief executive Brett Yormark is renowned for his unbridled optimism — a trait that didn’t waver, even during last season’s record-breaking futility of an 0-18 start en route to a league-worst 12 wins in 82 games. So it’s a given that Yormark would gush about the possibilities in Brooklyn, where the arena is a key piece of the Atlantic Yards project being built by developer Forest City Ratner.
“We’ve been talking to artists and promoters, and the biggest names in the business want to play here,” Yormark said during a tour of the arena site last week. “I think our opening-month celebration is going to be unprecedented. When we put out the artists’ names that are going to appear here. … Everyone sees the movement in Brooklyn. They understand that this is going to continue the renaissance in Brooklyn, and they’re embracing it. They want to be a part of it.”
...Yormark said season-ticket holders will begin receiving invitations to reserve Barclays Center seats in the next 10 days.
“We’re only marketing our 4,400 best seats to start,” said Yormark, whose arena will include 3,200 premium, or “club” seats. Yormark said that all 16 “brownstone suites,” featuring 16 seats, have sold out at $450,000 apiece. Yormark said about 40 percent of the suites are sold overall, with the nine most-expensive, event-level, Jay-Z-designed suites being held off the market until the fall.
...But many Nets fans in New Jersey undoubtedly can’t visualize crossing two major rivers and numerous potential traffic bottlenecks to make it to the Barclays Center — even though the arena is less than 20 miles from downtown Hackensack and less than 30 miles from Wayne.
...Parking also figures to be a challenge, although Yormark said there will be 1,100 spaces at the site, 600 more at the Atlantic Center, and another 1,600 to 1,700 spots in lots within six to eight blocks. Yormark said that studies show about 70 percent of Knicks fans arrive by mass transportation, and that he hopes that at least half of Nets fans will do the same.
Posted by eric at 11:10 AM
March 24, 2011
Barclays Center Starts Raising the Roof
Curbed
by Joey Arak
 |
What makes this Barclays Center construction update different from the ones that have come before it? Now the arena is one big mothertrussin' pile of steel. The arched Barclays-branded roof will be supported by two 350-foot-long trusses, and a new photo released by the Nets organization and posted on Nets Daily shows the first one being installed. The 1000% of Brooklynites who support Atlantic Yards should be thrilled!
Photo: New Jersey Nets via Nets Daily
Posted by eric at 11:13 AM
March 23, 2011
EXCLUSIVE: Barclays Center will be nest for the Blackbirds
The Brooklyn Paper
by Gary Buiso
The Blackbirds are looking to nest with the Nets.
The suddenly world-class Long Island University men’s basketball team is in negotiations to play a portion of its home games at the Barclays Center, catapulting the plucky squad to a national audience when the arena is completed next year.
“LIU [is part of] a strategic partnership that will encompass many areas of our business, including having several LIU games played at the Barclays Center,” said Nets spokesman Barry Baum.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, LIU basketball team may play at Barclays Center; that puts the LIU provost's enthusiastic, unquestioning support for AY in context
In an article labeled "Exclusive," the Brooklyn Paper reports Barclays Center will be nest for the Blackbirds, which, as I explain below, helps put in context the hyperbolic support for Atlantic Yards recently expressed by the provost of Long Island University.
...Note that the home court hasn't been doing that well, with fewer than 1800 seats filled--one tenth of the capacity of the Barclays Center. As the New York Times reported last week:
The team did not sell out its home games until the Northeast Conference final, when the gym (capacity 1,800) was packed with students and faculty members, and some local groups who got free tickets.
...Numerous smaller academic institutions have used sports to gain a larger public profile, and LIU seems eager to adopt that strategy.
But the AY support still doesn't add up. The campus provost, Gale Stevens Haynes (a self-described basketball fan) said in a sworn affidavit in the case challenging the Atlantic Yards timetable (heard this month):
The students and faculty at LIU-Brooklyn are very supportive of the Atlantic Yards Redevelopment Project. The advantages of the Project are abundant.
... I know that the students and faculty of LIU-Brooklyn firmly believe that the important public benefits that will result from the Project will outweigh any adverse impacts of extended construction on our neighborhoods.
If LIU students don't care about their own university's basketball team, how do they care about Atlantic Yards? They don't.
Posted by eric at 11:02 AM
March 10, 2011
Arena slightly ahead of schedule, consultant reports, but "schedule disputes" linger; report reissued after chart errors found
Atlantic Yards Report
According to the latest Site Observation Report by Merritt & Harris, the real estate consultant to the arena PILOT Bond Trustee, dated 3/3/11 and based on a visit 1/31/11, the Barclays Center is still on schedule, but questions remain:
The original High Level Arena Summary Construction Schedule, dated July 16, 2010, has been provided for our review. The current schedule, prepared by Hunt, indicates that substantial completion is anticipated to be by August 12, 2012. The Developer is currently reviewing that schedule and is working with Hunt to resolve current schedule disputes. A resolution is expected over the next few months.
Note that resolution of such disputes was originally expected in December.
An early substantial completion date of June 1, 2012, has been established, which means that the arena could be used in June and July.
Posted by eric at 11:34 AM
March 9, 2011
Mission impossible?
Meadowlands Matters [NorthJersey.com]
by John Brennan
John Brennan, who's done some of the most astute mainstream-media coverage of Atlantic Yards from across not one, but two, rivers, scoops the New York MSM again.
Sean Saadeh was just hired to be vice president of programming for the Barclays Center, the Brooklyn arena that is under construction and is scheduled to open in August 2012.
According to the press release, “The Barclays Center will host more than 200 events annually, including premier concerts, monthly major professional boxing cards, professional tennis, top college basketball and hockey, family shows.. and Nets basketball.”
200? With one sports tenant? Figure 45 to 50 Nets games, counting preseason and maybe a round or two of playoffs (might be being kind there), and that leaves at least 150 other events to go. In a recent Sports Business Journal story, club chief executive Brett Yormark broke that down to include 48 Feld Entertainment shows, 12 boxing events, 25 college basketball and hockey games, at least 20 concerts with Live Nation, and a couple of tennis events.
That doesn’t even add up to 200, and those estimates sound optimistic anyway - even with Madison Square Garden going dark in the summer for a couple of years due to a $1 billion renovation. Sounds like the Nets either expect a lot more Harlem Globetrotters and Disney on Ice events to suddenly be held, or they expect to steal nearly all such events from Nassau Coliseum, Izod Center, and Prudential Center.
But as the latter Newark arena discovered after its 2007 opening, promoters and acts didn’t flock to that site from 30-year-old Izod Center just because the new building had wider concourses and a fresh coat of paint. The acts wind up where they can make the most money, not where their fans can get a wider variety of snacks at the concession stand. So Saadeh has his work cut out for him.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Will the Barclays Center host even 200 events a year? That's questionable--and the longstanding promise was 225 events
That adds up to about 110 events beyond basketball, or less than 160.
Brennan suggests that the example of the Prudential Center, which didn't lure acts from the Izod Center, bodes ill for Barclays. Then again, as one Brooklynite pointed out on NetsDaily, there's a new market to tap.
Yeah, 'cause god knows the hassle of taking the subway all the way to Madison Square Garden. Most Brooklynites have never even been to Manhattan.
As we've known for years, the longstanding projection of 225 events a year depended on the closing of the Meadowlands Arena (now the Izod Center) and no construction of an arena in Newark. (Forest City even told the MTA there would be 250 events.)
That scenario of 225 events was accepted by famed sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, a paid FCR consultant, even though it left no place for the New Jersey Devils to play hockey, as Gustav Peebles and Jung Kim pointed out in their critical analysis of Zimbalist's report.
The Izod Center remains open. A new arena was built in Newark. That means more competition, even if Brooklyn is an under-tapped market.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Coming Soon! An Empty Arena
The unravelling of fantasy versus reality in the world of Forest City Ratner continues, as John Brennan, a veteran sports business journalist, takes a look at the booking potential of the Barclays Center on NorthJersey.com. He notes that a recent press release promises that the venue will host "more than 200" events per year, but Brennan does the math and has a hard time coming up with a number even close to that.
...Brooklyn residents may be happy to have fewer nights of Barclays-induced traffic jams, but in the end the odds are that if the Arena falls short of its financial fantasies, in one way or another New York taxpayers will be picking up the slack.
NoLandGrab: What, no Hasidic weddings?
Posted by eric at 12:50 PM
March 1, 2011
Barclays Center Taking Shape
A monthly photo essay documenting the construction of the Atlantic Yards development and the Barclays Center, which the Brooklyn-bound New Jersey Nets will soon call home.
Park Slope Patch
Photo by Kristen V. Brown
More photos here.
Posted by eric at 10:50 AM
Slopers are too late to stop Yards-area bar
The Brooklyn Paper
Dozens of enraged Park Slopers stormed a community board meeting on Monday night to object to a liquor license for a controversial bar at the corner of Flatbush and Sixth avenues — but the protesters quickly learned that they were too late: the liquor license had been granted earlier this month because no one raised an objection.
Akiva Ofshtein was granted his license by the State Liquor Authority on Feb. 16 for his location inside the former Royal Video store about a block and a half from the under-construction Barclays Center basketball arena.
He had notified Community Board 6 back in November of his intention to seek the license. The board had 30 days to object, but it did not.
...The business will occupy a prime spot in what is already a nightlife hub, one that will undoubtedly get busier with the arrival of the Brooklyn Nets. The battle against the bar can be seen, in part, as a proxy battle for the lost war over Atlantic Yards.
...Community Board 6 will reconsider the matter in a month, but it is unclear what the panel can achieve.
Ofshtein still needs the Department of Buildings to sign off on the plans, which request a total occupancy of 230 people.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, The battle over Prime 6 at the corner of Flatbush and Sixth: not a sports bar, but questions over the owner's intentions
Given the capacity and the proximity to transit, it's questionable that Ofshtein is targeting a neighborhood audience, as he claimed to the Paper:
In an interview, he told us that he has yet to decide what type of restaurant his place will be, deciding between a “California kitchen” and a steakhouse, possibly named Prime 6.
But either way, he insisted, his restaurant is for locals.
“I am gearing up for a Park Slope clientele,” he said, promising a May opening.
The bar will serve food until 4 am, feature two large televisions, a private party area, “acoustic music,” and an outdoor garden area — which residents said must be removed from his plans.
Park Slope Patch, Slopers Rally Against Atlantic Yards-Area Restaurant
A controversial restaurant near Atlantic Yards was granted a liquor license weeks ago without any protest from the community, but the throngs of angry Slope residents who crowded a community board meeting Monday night in hopes of blocking the license had no idea.
...Neighbors to Prime 6 particularly decried the restaurant’s plan to serve food until 4 a.m., seven days a week and called for any backyard space to be scrapped entirely.
“He really just needs to abandon the outdoor space. He may not be aware of the acoustics, but there is no way that it will not be loud,” said Paul Zumoff, a Bergen Street resident and area real estate broker. “I sympathize with how difficult it is to open a restaurant, but he doesn’t appear to be receptive to our concerns.”
Brownstoner, Slopers Rally Against Alleged 'Gentleman's Club'
Brownstoner has some video from last night's meeting.
Posted by eric at 10:11 AM
February 26, 2011
That arena entrance on Sixth Avenue? It would become a main entrance for a stretch if Building 1 gets constructed
Atlantic Yards
Only in December 2010 did we see images of an arena entrance on Sixth Avenue, not present in any of the previous renderings, or in the Design Guidelines, which state that principal entrances " shall be located through the Urban Room and on Atlantic Avenue and Dean Street."
But the Urban Room, west of the arena, would be replaced by a plaza, and that plaza would be closed during the time of construction if and when the flagship tower, B1, is built. That would finally produce the Urban Room.
A new main entrance
Information on the new main entrance was in the 12/21/09 Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments, posted by the Empire State Development Corporation and laying out Forest City Ratner's obligations:
In the event development of Building 1 is delayed so that it will be constructed after the arena commences operation, FCRC shall, for the period of construction of Building 1: (i) relocate the main arena entrances to the north and east side of the arena; (ii) provide directional signage at various point on the arena block, indicating routes to the arena’s entrances and amenities; and (iii) erect pedestrian construction sheds protecting, among other areas, the subway entrance and pedestrian walkways and sidewalks on the arena block.
Posted by steve at 4:50 PM
January 30, 2011
When was Ellerbe Becket on board? Article suggests arena architect switch began in November 2008, well before June 2009 announcement
Atlantic Yards Report
When exactly did architect Frank Gehry get bounced from the Atlantic Yards arena and project?
The replacement firm, the veteran arena designers Ellerbe Becket (later to be assisted by facade architect SHoP), didn't emerge until 5/27/09, while the official statement that Gehry was gone came on 6/4/09.
However, a trade publication article that I (and others) missed suggests that the relationship had been severed as of November 2008, a time when Ellerbe Becket, according to another report, was said to simply have begun advising Forest City Ratner.
...
Here's the new evidence. In a 9/30/09 article headlined Barclays Center: Firms Large and Small(er) Come Together Around Performative Design, AIArchitect reported:
Last November Ellerbe Becket (whose sports design practice is in Kansas City, Mo.) began working with Forest City Ratner on a less expensive design. In June, SHoP began working with Ellerbe Becket on the project, and the two firms released a final design in September, which Forest City Ratner is raising $700 million to build.
(Emphasis added)
The phrase "working... on a less expensive design" is not the same as (in the Daily News's words) "reevaluate the extravagant arena design Gehry conceived."
Ellerbe Becket and SHoP
The AIArchitect article ignores the sequence by which SHoP was hired. After generic Ellerbe Becket designs emerged (allegedly leaked by City Planning Commission Chair Amanda Burden), New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff in June 2009 called it a "shameful betrayal of the public trust."
Posted by steve at 9:46 AM
January 26, 2011
For Times, arena returns as a sports story, sourced to Ratner, who claims, “Brooklyn has been waiting for this, really, since the Dodgers left"
Atlantic Yards Report
Atlantic Yards is once again a sports story, and the only sources for the New York Times's New Arena for the Nets Is Sprouting in Brooklyn are developer Bruce Ratner and uber-marketer Brett Yormark.
In response to some not-so-informed comments by former point guard Jason Kidd, who didn't think the arena was happening, and perhaps (as per NLG) a not-so-flattering article telling us Nets tickets are going for pennies, the Times tells us:
After several years of legal wrangling and the economic downturn, the Barclays Center is finally and firmly on the way after ground was broken last year.
“It got delayed so much and there were so many false starts, ‘I think we’re there, I think we’re there,’ and then the economy got bad and this thing happened and that thing happened, so unless you read carefully, you don’t realize how far along it is and that it’s really on its way,” Ratner said.
Well, it's on its way, but exactly how far is not completely clear. A more independent source, a consultant to the bond trustee, has indicated that a meeting on schedule disputes was to happen last month, and that substantial completion had been nudged back from July to August 2012.
...Remember, back in November, 2005, Scott Turner of Fans for Fair Play savaged the relevance of Dodgers nostalgia in the context of the Atlantic Yards saga, contrasting owners, their devotion to sports, their commitment to local fans, the players, ticket costs, and commitment to local businesses, among other things.
Posted by eric at 11:53 AM
January 25, 2011
New Arena for the Nets Is Sprouting in Brooklyn
The New York Times
by Jonathan Abrams
Someone at The Times dropped the ball and allowed an article to make it into today's paper about Nets tickets selling for less than the price of a stick of gum, so in the interest of "balance," tomorrow's paper will include this non-news fluffery.
After several years of legal wrangling and the economic downturn, the Barclays Center is finally and firmly on the way after ground was broken last year.
“It got delayed so much and there were so many false starts, ‘I think we’re there, I think we’re there,’ and then the economy got bad and this thing happened and that thing happened, so unless you read carefully, you don’t realize how far along it is and that it’s really on its way,” Ratner said.
He spoke Tuesday from the 14th floor of a bank building across the street from the construction in Prospect Heights as snow fell and workers pieced together parts of the upper bowl. The arena is expected to open in the summer of 2012 and also host boxing, tennis and other events. The Nets will attempt to tap into the Knicks’ stranglehold of New York City and hired the marketing agency Translation, led by the recording executive Steve Stoute, to promote the brand.
“I think Brooklyn has been waiting for this, really, since the Dodgers left,” Ratner said.
The opposition that clogged the arena’s path would probably disagree. Ratner — a development partner of The New York Times in building its current headquarters — once doubted that the arena would be built when the economy collapsed, but regained optimism once the Yankees gained financing for their new stadium.
That's us, clogging the path of progress like an oversized dump. Didn't have anything to do with eminent domain abuse, backroom deals, massive subsidies, rigged environmental studies... shall we go on?
And now, a word from Mr. Credibility.
Brett Yormark, the Nets’ chief executive, said he expected no further delays.
“None whatsoever, and I don’t have my blinders on because I’m open to see any and all obstacles,” he said. “But we’re full speed ahead all the way.”
Posted by eric at 10:40 PM
January 21, 2011
Document shows that, after arena naming rights agreement was signed, it was amended twice, in 2008 and 2009
Atlantic Yards Report
Thanks to an agreement (embedded below) between Barclays Capital and the Bank of New York Mellon, we have confirmation that indicated the arena naming rights agreement was negotiated not just from a reported $400 million in 2007 to $200 million-plus in 2009, but also with some unspecified interim amendments in 2008.
The agreement concerns, among other things, the role of the naming rights fee in paying off bondholders, via PILOTs (payments in lieu of taxes). It does not specify the value of naming rights agreement. The state simply gave away naming rights to Forest City Ratner, which marketed them to Barclays.
The bank is the trustee for the PILOTs; the document was found via ACRIS, the city's property database.
Amendments in 2008 and 2009
The key text begins on the bottom of page 11 of the document. It indicates that Brooklyn Arena LLC, an affiliate of the Brooklyn Events Center building the arena, entered in a naming rights agreement dated 1/17/07, which was amended 11/4/08, and then amended again on 8/3/09.
Of course, after the first amendment in 2008, after the stock market crashed, Barclays stated in a press release that it was "unwavering" in its commitment to the Barclays Center.
As I wrote, we weren't told whether that commitment included a renegotiation of terms.
Most likely it did. After all, the agreement itself was not "unwavering."
Posted by eric at 11:30 AM
January 19, 2011
8 per cent of fans at sports games are drunk: study
CTV
Speaking of drinking, here's some sobering news for people who live near Bruce Ratner's Barclays Center, which, thanks to New York State's override of local zoning rules, will sit directly across the street from a residential neighborhood.
A new study says eight per cent of professional sports fans who agreed to be surveyed were legally drunk when leaving the stadium after a game.
The study, published online in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, found about 60 per cent of fans surveyed had blew a zero on a breathalyzer, 40 per cent tested positive for alcohol in their blood. In total, 8.4 per cent were legally drunk, with a blood alcohol level higher than .08.
However, the lead author of the study admits the sample size was small, as few fans wanted to blow on a breathalyzer after the game.
"Getting fans to submit to a breath test and participate in a brief survey following a football or baseball game is not an easy task," Darin Erickson of the University of Minnesota said in a statement.
Presumably, many refuseniks were too drunk to understand what they were being asked to do.
"That's a lot of drunken individuals who could be involved in traffic crashes, assaults, vandalism, crime and other injuries," Erickson said.
...A 1992 Canadian study had similar results.
Posted by eric at 5:09 PM
January 7, 2011
Daily News piles on speculation in suggesting Islanders may move to Brooklyn
Atlantic Yards Report
A Daily News article today, headlined Battle may be brewing between Brooklyn and Queens for the Islanders, is pretty short on solid facts:
Two years after the Queens Chamber of Commerce expressed interest in luring the Islanders, a Brooklyn-born billionaire has emerged as a potential buyer for the struggling team whose Nassau Coliseum lease expires in 2015.
Nelson Peltz, a corporate investor on the board of Arby's and Wendy's, has explored buying the hockey club, according to ESPN.com and NHL FanHouse.
Peltz's interest sparked speculation about the Islanders moving to his hometown borough and the under-construction Barclays Center, where the Nets are set to play come 2012.
Speculation from whom? Based on this reasoning, the home town of every potential sports team buyer, should it have an arena, should be considered ripe for relocation.
Not even the Nets were ready to embrace it:
Nets spokesman Barry Baum said the basketball and hockey teams have not discussed sharing Barclays Center.
And that, most likely, is because the Brooklyn arena is too small for major league hockey.
NoLandGrab: The Nets and Forest City Ratner, of course, were happy to let speculation of the Islanders' relocation to their planned Brooklyn arena dangle when they were about to sell bonds to finance its construction.
Related coverage...
NY Daily News, Battle may be brewing between Brooklyn and Queens for the Islanders
NLG: The fantasy also known as the Brooklyn Islanders has been thoroughly debunked by both Noticing New York and Atlantic Yards Report.
Posted by eric at 9:31 AM
December 29, 2010
The 2010 NYC Streetsies, Part 2
Streetsblog
by Ben Fried
Congratulations, Bruce Ratner! Your fanciful (and misleading) vision of the vacant space created by the absence of your promised "Urban Room" just won a Streetsie!
Most Delusional Renderings: Forest City Ratner released drawings of shiny, happy people milling about the temporary plaza that will be situated between its new arena and the twin traffic sewers of Atlantic and Flatbush. Not pictured: The oceans of surface parking on the other side of the arena.
 |
Posted by eric at 10:57 AM
December 20, 2010
'Little' film, big stars
NY Post
by Cindy Adams
Bruce Ratner and his arena find their way into the Post's gossip pages.
Bruce Ratner's coming Barclays Center on Flatbush and Atlantic in Brooklyn opens 2012 with Ringling Brothers and then Disney on Ice.
NoLandGrab: The circus and Disney on Ice? For this we're paying a billion dollars?
Posted by eric at 10:07 AM
December 18, 2010
Second look: a view of the arena and interim open space, as if a hovercraft; also, there's a new arena entrance on Sixth Avenue
Atlantic Yards Report
Thursday I showed this new image of interim open space, looking northwest at the Atlantic Yards arena toward the corner of Dean Street (left) and Sixth Avenue.
The comment from Eric McClure: NoLandGrab: Okay, no one loves bike parking and picnic benches more than we do, BUT THAT ILLUSTRATION MAKES THE ARENA APPEAR NO BIGGER THAN THE KEY FOOD AT FIFTH AVENUE AND STERLING PLACE! ARE THEY KIDDING?!
I'd add that the perspective is not from street level but from a hovercraft. Paging Nicolai Ouroussoff, the New York Times architecture critic, who has slammed the "distorted reality" of project renderings, but not regarding Atlantic Yards.
Also, the arena looks awfully narrow, as if it's just nudging part of the way down Dean Street. That's rather doubtful, if you look at a schematic, reproduced below.
Posted by steve at 9:50 PM
December 14, 2010
Ringling Bros. circus to perform at Barclays Center
The Brooklyn Blog [NYPost.com]
by Rich Calder
“The Barclays Center will be all about family, entertainment, and fun for people of all economic means,” said Bruce Ratner, chairman and CEO of Forest City Ratner Companies, the developer of the Barclays Center.
Especially if your "means" enable you to purchase a $500,000-per-year-suite.
"We look forward to the Barclays Center creating memories that will last a lifetime.”
Or the completion of the project, which ever comes first.
Posted by eric at 4:57 PM
December 13, 2010
Elephants Will Walk Down Flatbush Ave. In 2013!
Gothamist
by Ben Yakas
Earlier this week, it was reported that the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus will be skipping town to Jersey for the time being. But Brooklyn Paper reports today that the circus will soon have a new home in Brooklyn—at the Barclays Center. One of the productions of the “Greatest Show on Earth” will take up residency at the future home of the Nets in March 2013, about six months after the arena is slated to open.
In a statement, Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner sounded rather pumped: “I can’t wait to see circus elephants marching down Flatbush Avenue and into the Barclays Center." Elephants and free beer? It almost makes one forget about all those irate protests and furious residents.
Posted by eric at 10:16 AM
December 11, 2010
Circus coming to town! Ratner, Ringling ink deal at Barclays Center
The Brooklyn Paper
By Aaron Short
The development of Atlantic Yards has been sometimes compared to a three-ring circus — but now the real thing is coming to Prospect Heights.
The producers of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced on Friday that they had inked a deal to bring one of their productions to the under-construction Barclays Center in March, 2013, about six months after the arena is slated to open near the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues. Mac Support Store
A spokesman for Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner said that the Ringling Bros. show would be the same “Greatest Show on Earth” mega-production that fills Madison Square Garden, a rival arena, though a spokesman for the circus was not 100 percent sure.
NoLandGrab: In addition to eminent domain abuse that has taken place in Prospect Heights, we can now look forward to elephant abuse.
Posted by steve at 8:31 AM
BK Nets Consider Tempting Fans With Free Beer
Gothamist
The headline here is misleading. The beer concept is the idea comes from Ryan Lynch of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. Ratner's solution for reducing traffic for events at the Nets arena is: "we're still working on it."
The Nets' season is quickly hitting the crapper with a six game losing streak, leaving them with a less-than-sterling 6-17 record. And while the mere fact that they exist may be enough to develop some fan base in Newark, it ain't gonna cut it once the team moves to Brooklyn in a few years. But you know what might get the fans in? Forget Carmelo Anthony—try free beer.
That's one idea that transportation advocates are suggesting for the Nets when they move to their new home at the Barclay Center at Atlantic Yards. But it has more to do with traffic and parking than the Nets woeful current team. “There needs to be more incentives from the developer and events promoters to encourage event-goers to get on mass transit. You could show your Metrocard or LIRR ticket and get a discount at the concession stand,” said Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s Ryan Lynch. Residents are concerned about the increase in traffic that will occur when the Nets move in, clogging up the neighborhood, as well as a potential lack of available parking. “We’re working on a fully integrated transportation plan that will look at a variety of ways of using mass transit instead of driving to the arena on game nights or event nights,” said the spokesman, Joe DePlasco.
Related coverage...
The Village Voice, Brooklyn Nets Want to Woo Subway Riders With Free Beer
By Myles Tanzer
This awesome solution would create a crazier fan base and help conquer traffic problems. It's a win-win! Plus, free beer!
...
However, this does have the potential to go badly. Recall the Cleveland Indians' infamous "10 Cent Beer Night" in 1974, in which they offered a 10 cent beer promotion to attract a larger attendance for the game. Needless to say, everyone showed up -- and came to party. The fans got so rowdy that the umpires had to call the game.
Posted by steve at 8:13 AM
November 17, 2010
Over the 38-year term for arena bonds, lots of unknowns: continuing revenue, cost of renovations
Atlantic Yards Report
In ratings reports regarding the Atlantic Yards arena, Standard & Poor's assessed both the strengths and weaknesses of the project, justifying a rating of BBB-, or the lowest run of investment grade.
One weakness:
The 38-year debt term is longer than most comparable rated projects.
Well, it's true that the comparably rated bonds for the Yankees' and Mets' new stadiums have 40-year terms, but baseball stadiums generally endure longer than arenas and the two baseball teams have established track records in New York City.
The unknowns: who pays for renovation?
But there are two unknowns that I haven't seen addressed in the bond materials and ratings.
First, the arena would inevitably have to be renovated, given the track record of numerous arenas, as detailed below.
Second, the analyzed revenue--e.g., from naming rights and sponsorship deals--covers a term far shorter than 38 years.
...Short life spans for some arenas
In Seattle, the Washington State Pavilion (1962) was remodeled as the Washington State Coliseum, which in 1967 became home to the Seattle SuperSonics and was rebuilt 27 years later as Key Arena. Some 13 years after that, team owners were unsuccessful in getting public funding for a renovation or new arena, and the team moved to Oklahoma City for the 2008-09 season.
The Miami arena, completed in 1988, lost the Miami Heat in 2000 to the American Airlines Arena. The Florida Panthers left, as did concerts. The arena was sold via an auction in 2004 and demolished in 2008.
The Orlando arena opened in 1989 and, within eleven years, was deemed obsolete. A new arena will open later this year, 21 years later.
The Nets' most recent home, the Izod Center at the Meadowlands, opened in 1981 and lost the team just this year, 29 years later.
None of the four arenas noted above had the luxury suites and premium seating that are now standard.
Still, new bells and whistles surely will become standard. The Atlantic Yards arena won't last 38 years without a major renovation, or becoming obsolete. Who's going to pay?
NoLandGrab: "Who's going to pay?" That's obviously a rhetorical question, because we all know the answer, and it ain't Bruce Ratner.
Posted by eric at 12:37 PM
Nets could leave Brooklyn after 30 years, not 37, if arena bonds are paid
Atlantic Yard Report
I hadn't noticed this earlier, but if the financing is paid off early, before the 38-year term, the Nets (or whatever their name will be) could leave the Atlantic Yards arena after 30 years.
From the Empire State Development Corporation's 2009 Modified General Project Plan:
The Nets will also enter into a non-relocation agreement with the City and ESDC pursuant to which the team will agree to play substantially all of its home games at the new Arena for the life of the PILOT Bonds but in no event no less than 30 years.
From the bond offering statement:
New Jersey Basketball's obligations under the Non-Relocation Agreement will terminate on the earliest to occur of (i) the thirty-seventh (37th) anniversary of the effective date of the Non-Relocation Agreement, (ii) the abandonment of the Arena Project prior to the date of the opening of the first season or (iii) the thirtieth (30th) anniversary of the effective date of the Non-Relocation Agreement if on or prior to such date all bonds, debentures, loans, credit facilities or other financing or liability issued, facilitated or incurred by the Issuer in connection with the acquisition, construction, development or operation of the Arena Project have been indefeasibly paid or otherwise satisfied in full.
NoLandGrab: 30 years should be considered the maximum, since "contractual obligations" between professional sports franchises and their arenas and stadiums are about as reliable as Bruce Ratner's jobs and affordable-housing promises.
Posted by eric at 12:23 PM
November 16, 2010
The Five Best Stories Jay-Z Told Last Night at the New York Public Library
NYMag.com
by Amos Barshad
Actually, the stories aren't so hot, but one of them is semi-relevant.
On the lessons he's learned from BFF Ty Ty, of “still sipping Mai Tais” fame:
“My friend Ty Ty, he let his son [come] to a very important event with a costume on. It was the groundbreaking ceremony for the Nets, he was sitting in front of me, it was very distracting, with this Batman suit on. I was thinking, That's quite odd. But that's just the strength in his conviction. His son, that's what he wanted to wear — and he's not going out telling him, you can't do that. He's letting him figure it out on his own. I'm sure when he sees the pictures, it's not going to be a bright spot for him.”
NoLandGrab: Not odder than these costumes.
Posted by eric at 11:18 AM
October 10, 2010
Barclays Center Arena, with Daniel Goldstein's former home?
Tracy Collins via Flickr
This is a rendering of the current design of the Barclays Center Arena of Atlantic Yards. When this rendering (by SHoP Architects) was revealed at a public meeting on the new plaza design (on the right in the photo), I thought I had recognized the building in the background on the far left (shown by the note in the photo) as 636 Pacific Street, aka Daniel Goldstein's former home.
636 Pacific is currently being demolished, and it would have been near center court of the arena, and not on Atlantic Avenue as this rendering shows.
Posted by steve at 9:46 PM
Nets Brooklyn arena construction will be complete by 2012, arena owner Bruce Ratner guarantee
Daily News
By Stefan Bondy
As promises for job creation and affordable houses fall through, developer Bruce Ratner is anxious to show that he can deliver on those things that are of benefit to Bruce Ratner.
In Brooklyn, the construction of the Barclays Center is "on schedule and on budget," arena owner Bruce Ratner told the Daily News at halftime of Saturday's 90-89 preseason victory over the 76ers.
"I can guarantee 2012," Ratner said.
This article relocates the arena to the Brooklyn neighborhood Boerum Hill, instead of the actual location in Prospect Heights.
The Nets will play the next two seasons at the Rock in Newark - a city they're trying to embrace with giant billboards of players hanging on buildings - before moving to the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Aves. in Boerum Hill and, perhaps, changing their nickname.
Posted by steve at 9:22 PM
October 3, 2010
AY Barclays Center public plaza meeting photos, Sept 29, 2010
Photo, by Tracy Collins, via flickr Atlantic Yards Photo Pool.
 |
Posted by steve at 9:18 AM
September 29, 2010
Ratner says Barclays Arena will be ready for Nets' 2012-13 season
NorthJersey.com
by John Brennan
A live camera that focused on the Barclays Center site in Brooklyn during a Manhattan press conference Tuesday appeared to show a construction site that isn't much more than what arena developer Bruce Ratner said was a hole about 30 feet deep.
But Ratner insisted that a $900 million arena at the site will be ready in time for the Nets to move to Brooklyn from Newark for the start of the 2012-13 National Basketball Association season.
Ratner estimated an opening date of "July or August of 2012," but he was asked whether the Nets might play any games in Newark in 2012 if the arena isn't finished on time.
"The answer is that we are going to finish on time," the developer replied. "Nothing is ever 100 percent, but in the construction area, things go pretty smoothly. And we left ourselves some time between July and Nov. 1, so I don't think that's going to be an issue."
NoLandGrab: Since Bruce Ratner always tells the truth, that's good enough for us.
Related coverage...
NY1, Developers Unveil Plaza Design For New Barclays Center
Prospect Heights residents have had to get used to the construction zone, with sidewalks closed and traffic even more tied up than normal at the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues. Developers say once the Barclays Center is complete in two years, there will be minimal traffic in the heavily congested area and also a spacious public plaza with views right into the Nets basketball arena.
NLG: "Minimal traffic?" Like we said, Bruce Ratner always tells the truth. Uh huh.
NY Post, New plans for Brooklyn Atlantic Yards project released
Greg Pasquarelli, a partner at ShoP Architects, which designed the plaza, told the Post he "wouldn’t be shocked" if the next big community fight regarding the Atlantic Yards project "is to save the Oculus" once people get to use it.
Sure, that's likely. We might even trademark "Develop Don't De-Oculus Brooklyn."
Ratner, who is partnering in the arena with new Nets majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov, said he believes the plaza "will quickly become one of Brooklyn’s great public spaces." He and his staff said they envision such uses as café seating, fashions shows, a farmers market similar to one in Grand Army Plaza, movie nights and — specifically — hipster-favorite the Brooklyn Flea.
But he may have been jumping the gun. Jonathan Butler, the flea market’s co-owner, said he "never met Bruce Ratner — nor has anyone from his team approached us about this idea."
"The central location is clearly attractive from a market organizer’s standpoint, but I suspect the traffic situation would pose some logistical challenges," said Butler, adding: "I could definitely use some advice on obtaining tax-free bond financing for our tents though."
Posted by eric at 8:40 AM
September 28, 2010
Mindboggling Reveals: Atlantic Yards Arena Team Unveils Public Plaza Design
Curbed
 |
A day before the "public information meeting" on the design of the plaza adjacent to the Barclays Center, Forest City Ratner releases renderings and a press statement.
Know what would make a great venue for the Atlantic Yards musical? The Atlantic Yards public plaza! That's right, Brooklyn's most controversial megaproject isn't all basketball arenas and skyscrapers. It also includes a 38,885-square-foot space at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, a sort of grand entrance to the Barclays Center that developer Bruce Ratner says in a press release "will quickly become one of Brooklyn’s great public spaces," at least until the B1 office building gets built.
The Plaza at the Barclays Center, like the arena itself, was designed by SHoP Architects, and features landscaping, a subway entrance, three types of pavement, seating areas for scalpers when LeBron James comes to town, in-ground lighting and the Barclays Center Oculus, which extends over the plaza and looks pretty trippy. Speaking of, is it just us or did the arena's overhang get smaller from earlier renderings? The new aerial shot makes it look a lot less like a bottle opener, which we're going to say is a good thing.
Here's everything you need to know about The Plaza at Barclays Center, except, of course, when it will funnel crowds into an arena with a winning team....
NoLandGrab: Actually, SHoP designed the exterior of the arena, after the huge public outcry over the "airplane hangar" design put forth by Ellerbe Becket after Trojan Horse Frank Gehry got his walking papers.
Permit us to make some observations about this new plaza design:
Once again, Forest City has released an absurdly traffic-free rendering of the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. Either they have inside information about an effort to resurrect congestion pricing in Albany (God knows they are plugged into NY State pols), or they're once again painting a waaaaay too rosy picture of what we all expect will be traffic chaos.
What's with all those bollards ringing the site? Didn't the NYPD say they wouldn't be necessary?
Speaking of security, with the arena practically hanging over Atlantic Avenue, mightn't they have to close a lane or two during arena events?
What's up with that pathetic little ski slope? Is that supposed to be the "green roof" Forest City promised, oh, about seven years ago?
Related coverage...
The Brooklyn Paper, Plaza sweet — Ratner unveils new front for his Barclays Center
The plaza at the entrance to the Barclays Center arena could accommodate the Brooklyn Flea, a farmers market similar in size to the one in Grand Army Plaza, or a movie night as in Brooklyn Bridge Park, developer Bruce Ratner announced on Tuesday.
The plaza will also feature a subway entrance and exit and a sweeping view to the scoreboard hanging above center court. A canopy hanging over the entrance to the arena with a hole in the center — an oculus in architectural terms — will be wrapped with a video screen that bulges to 117-feet by 56-feet, big enough for a movie.
“The arena will be an icon that will sit on the Brooklyn skyline,” said Greg Pasquarelli of SHoP Architects, the firm designing the Barclays Center near the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues in Prospect Heights. “But it will integrate into the neighborhood and invite everyone to use it.”
AP via
The developer of a new arena for the NBA's New Jersey Nets has released a design for a temporary plaza in front of the Brooklyn venue.
The plaza at the busy intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues will be replaced by an office building when the market improves enough to build one.
NY Daily News, Plans for public plaza outside new Nets arena unveiled, set to open in 2012
It's unclear how long the plaza will be around. Ratner eventually plans to put an office tower there, but couldn't say when that will get underway.
"This economy for office buildings is not very good," Ratner said, adding he wouldn't build until a major tenant was in place. "It could happen in a couple years, or it could be longer."
The timeline for the rest of the 16 tower project is just as fuzzy.
Crain's NY Business, New Atlantic Yards Barclays Center plaza unveiled
The next step in the Atlantic Yards project will focus on the first residential building, which will include affordable housing. Mr. Ratner will announced the name of the architects that will work on the project some time in the first quarter of 2011, while construction could begin in the spring of next year, with construction of a new residential building beginning every six to nine months thereafter.
...The latest cost estimate for the arena is $900 million with the project still on budget. Mr. Ratner reiterated the fact that his company has applied for a federal program that gives green cards to foreign investors who lend money to job-creating projects. He's scheduled for a trip to China next month to raise funds.
Image: SHoP Architects
Posted by eric at 1:39 PM
September 20, 2010
Brooklyn Historical Society exhibit mistakenly claims Ratner built on site O'Malley wanted, which "remained largely unchanged until 2003"
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder has a fascinating post on a new, factually inaccurate exhibition by the Brooklyn Historical Society. Be sure to check out the maps of the several locations proposed in the Fifties for a replacement for Ebbets Field.
OK, it's not an uncommon error. The New York Times got it wrong, and so did an author relying on the newspaper.
But the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS)?
Yes, the BHS dismayingly continues the meme--nudged by developer Forest City Ratner and perpetuated by journalists and authors--that the Atlantic Yards arena would be situated on the "same site" Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley sought for a successor to Ebbets Field.
The meme mars a generally good BHS exhibition, Home Base: Memories of the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field, which includes a panel stating:
Across town, the site where O'Malley had hoped to build his new stadium remained largely unchanged until 2003, when real estate developer Bruce Ratner announced plans for the area. He envisioned eight million square feet of apartments, offices, shops, and an arena for the New Jersey Nets basketball team. Neighborhood opposition and an economic recession slowed progress. But Ratner finally broke ground on March 11, 2010.
(Emphasis added)
That's not true--and it's disappointing (see below) that the BHS plans only to have its guides offer clarifications, rather than re-do or annotate the panel.
NoLandGrab: The Brooklyn Historical Society, which has accepted money from Ratner and Barclays, is not distinguishing itself by shaping "history" to Bruce Ratner's benefit. BHS? More like BS.
Posted by eric at 10:14 AM
September 9, 2010
Barclays eyes tennis events
NY Post
by Mark DeCambre
Brett Yormark is at it again.
Move over, Flushing.
Barclays Capital is aiming to serve up professional tennis at the Barclays Center, which is being erected as the future home of the New Jersey Nets in downtown Brooklyn.
Either they've moved the arena or the Post got it wrong — the site we're familiar with lies amidst Fort Greene, Prospect Heights and Park Slope, near, but not in, downtown Brooklyn.
Brett Yormark -- president and CEO of Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, the sales and marketing arm of the Barclays Center -- hopes to showcase at least two tennis events a year.
"This is about adding more cachet to the facility and adding more [events] to the arena," said Yormark, who added that the goal for the facility is to host 225 events a year outside of basketball, including pro boxing and music concerts.
What kind of "tennis events" might these be?
Yormark said it's unclear if the Barclays Center will be hosting any tennis tournaments akin to the US Open but noted that "all options are being explored."
NoLandGrab: In addition to Wimbledon, Yormark is also "exploring" hosting air shows, the Super Bowl and the America's Cup races.
Posted by eric at 10:23 AM
August 12, 2010
Nets to Change Name, and May Not Use 'Brooklyn'
Local Pols Were Counting on Boost for Borough
WNYC
by Matthew Schuerman
Here's a twist — the latest in a long line of Atlantic Yards bait-and-switches gets pulled on... Marty Markowitz!
A lot of Brooklyn politicians—and local residents—gave their support to the Atlantic Yards complex assuming it would be host to “the Brooklyn Nets.” Now, they can’t be so sure.
A team spokesman, Barry Baum, confirms news reports that the team submitted an application to change its name to the NBA. The timing, he said, was in order to be ready for the move to Brooklyn, expected in late 2012. But Baum wouldn’t specify what the desired name would be or whether it would use “Brooklyn” or “New York” as the geographic name. The NBA also wouldn’t comment.
While the sports world is abuzz with speculation over a nickname change, local officials are more concerned about the geography.
"The owners from day one—the one pledge they made, beside other pledges, was that the name would be the Brooklyn something,” Borough President Marty Markowitz said. “And I don’t care what the second name is as long as the first name is Brooklyn.”
...An agreement that Ratner’s group negotiated with state officials to secure subsidies they needed for the project leaves open whether New York or Brooklyn would be used. That agreement was signed last October, about a month after the sale to Prokhorov was announced but before it closed.
“The company shall cause the team to play all of its home games using a name that incorporates the words ‘New York’ or ‘Brooklyn,’ unless otherwise agreed to in writing by ESDC,” the document states, using the acronym for the Empire State Development Corporation.
Markowtiz says he wasn’t aware of the document and would be disappointed if the team chose “New York” for its name.
“I know my colleagues in Brooklyn would feel very upset about it,” he said.
But Markowitz said he didn’t see any business reason why Prokhorov would break Ratner’s promise. “The whole idea of locating a basketball team in Brooklyn is because of the Brooklyn persona, the Brooklyn brand, the whole Brooklynish thing,” he said.
NoLandGrab: "Brooklynish thing?" Say what?
Frankly, we'd rather the Brooklyn name remain unblemished. And given that there are no "Bronx Yankees," "Queens Mets" or "Manhattan Rangers," we have a pretty good idea which way this thing is going — as the locals like to say, "not Brooklynish."
Additional coverage...
Brooklyn Paper, BREAKING: New Jersey Nets WILL change name!
In the spirit of new beginnings, we’re asking our readers to send in their proposed name for the Brooklyn squad by e-mailing the new monicker to newsroom@cnglocal.com. We’ll pass them along to our friends at the Nets — and publish a story with our favorites.
NLG: In honor of Mr. Markowitz, we're submitting the "New York Bike Lanes."
Posted by eric at 9:37 PM
August 2, 2010
So much for "structured programs and services": meditation room planned for the arena would be 150 square feet, more the size of a living room
Atlantic Yards Report
Remember that breathless 4/2/10 Brooklyn Paper article, headlined Finally, the Nets have a prayer! New arena to have ‘meditation’ room?
It somehow became the lead story in the next week's print edition, complete with an artist's imagining of what a meditation room might look like.
It was way off, as was the sports management expert quoted in the article who speculated that the room could be a revenue generator if it could accommodate a large congregation.
It won't.
How big might it be?
Though Forest City Ratner would not reveal the design of the room to the Brooklyn Paper, a March 2009 document describing Atlantic Yards benefits, which I obtained via a Freedom of Information Law request to the Empire State Development Corporation, describes the meditation room as just 150 square feet.
...From chapel to atrium to meditation room
The Reverend Herbert Daughtry, who runs a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) partner organization supported by Forest City Ratner, originally wanted a chapel.
That wouldn't fly, so instead emerged the meditation room or, as Daughtry declared in his dramatic 8/23/06 testimony at the hearing on the Atlantic Yards Draft Environmental Impact Statement, an atrium: "It will provide a place for our young, a place for the seniors, a place for the youth to come together in an atrium designed by us."
...How many people can "come together" in a 150 square foot space? Not many.
Posted by eric at 9:59 AM
July 27, 2010
Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment Announces Willis Group Holdings as a Major Partner of the Barclays Center in Brooklyn
Press Release via MarketWatch
Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, a sales and marketing arm of the Barclays Center, today announced that Willis Group Holdings plc, the global insurance broker, has become a major partner of the planned Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
...As part of its integrated marketing platform within the arena, the Willis brand will be displayed prominently as the exclusive sponsor of the Barclays Center's 38 Loge Boxes. The Willis name also will appear in all marketing and advertising associated with this premium seating, including a significant presence on Barclayscenter.com.
..."Brooklyn is a great global brand that's reaching new heights with the Barclays Center. The borough has earned a storied place in sports mythology, from the heroics at Ebbets Field to being the birthplace of legends such as Vince Lombardi, Joe Torre and Joe Paterno," said Joe Plumeri, Chairman and CEO of Willis. "Willis helps manage the world's most complex risks, and we look forward to both helping the Barclays Center through its multi-faceted construction process and, when the arena is opened, to working with Mikhail Prokhorov, Bruce Ratner, Brett Yormark, Jay-Z and their team to carry Jackie Robinson's legacy forward and bring a new generation of champions to Brooklyn and New York."
NoLandGrab: Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis? "Carry Jackie Robinson's legacy forward?" How, exactly?
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, London-based sponsor signed for 38 four-seat loge boxes at Barclays Center; Jackie Robinson legacy invoked for Prokhorov's team
Would you believe that Russia's second-richest man would be carrying Jackie Robinson's legacy forward?
See Scott Turner's (of Fans for Fair Play) November 2005 takedown of the difference between the Nets and the Dodgers.
Posted by eric at 10:03 AM
July 25, 2010
In Forbes video, Yormark spins suites: it's about "creating a sense of urgency and scarcity to that customer"
Atlantic Yards Report
In the Fobes video below, Nets Sports and Entertainment CEO Brett Yormark spins suites.
In the context of the overall economy, how would you describe the market for suites, Yormark is asked.
"It's certainly getting better," he responds. "I think the NBA does it as good as anybody else. They have annual meetings with respect to premium seating and suites, where we're doing a lot of best practice exchanges... But I think overall it's about creating more value. It's getting out of the box, being creative, running events, creating a sense of urgency and scarcity to that customer, and making sure you have the right message."
A sense of urgency? The suites have not exactly been selling well, given that, in 20 months, sales nudged from "about 30 percent" to less than 34 percent and the top price declined more than 21 percent.
What are their innovations?
"For us, it starts with our product mix," Yormark responds. "We have larger suites, smaller suites, and then we have our premium suites... And then it's about presentation. Not only we do have a great showroom... but we also have a traveling model... and we show that entire presentation on an iPad."
"We have a two-year move to Prudential [Center in Newark[, and then obviously the Barclays Center in the spring of 2012," Yormark says.
We'll see if that timing works out, given that the Prudential lease is renewable for two years.
NoLandGrab: Does anybody want to buy an arena suite? Anybody?
Posted by steve at 8:48 AM
July 22, 2010
Brooklyn arena positioned to host boxing events
AP
by Dave Skretta
The fertile boxing ground that produced dozens of world champions, from Mike Tyson to Riddick Bowe, will soon have a regular series of fights in a glimmering new arena.
By "soon," they mean "in a few years."
Golden Boy Promotions has agreed to bring at least 12 shows each year to the New Jersey Nets' new home in Brooklyn. The announcement was made Wednesday by Los Angeles-based Golden Boy and Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, which is behind the 22-acre Atlantic Yards development.
The centerpiece of it, the 18,000-seat Barclays Center, is scheduled to open in 2012.
"There's a rich heritage in this marketplace," Brett Yormark, president and chief executive of Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, told The Associated Press. "We're going to work very closely with Golden Boy, and we're very excited about the possibilities."
The agreement is exclusive in the fact that Golden Boy will not have similar agreements to develop other boxing franchises in the New York area, but Yormark said it will not prevent local promoters from working with Golden Boy to stage fights at the Barclays Center.
"The exclusive word is a little overstated," Yormark said.
NoLandGrab: Overstated? Until now, we didn't know that Yormark knew the meaning of the word.
Posted by eric at 10:47 AM
July 14, 2010
As Everyone Else Discovers Brooklyn, So Have Hoteliers
The New York Times
by Susan Stellin
The fantasy impact on hotel demand of Bruce Ratner's arena continues to get unquestioned play in the media.
Although there are plenty of high-rise condominiums and rental towers nearby (many still not completely occupied), the area’s retail options are mostly fast-food restaurants and discount stores, rather than the boutiques, cafes and restaurants that have made Brooklyn such a hot destination, first for residents and now tourists.
Hoyt Harper, a senior vice president of brand management for Sheraton, said this location was convenient to transportation hubs and would be well positioned to attract Nets fans when the new stadium opened nearby in Atlantic Yards.
“We’re two years ahead of the sports facility,” Mr. Harper said, “but we’ll be in a great location to capture the business that brings to the market.”
NoLandGrab: "The business that brings to the market?" We're not talking a Super Bowl, folks, we're talking a regular-season NBA game or a circus matinee. How many attendees at your average Knicks game are staying in Manhattan hotels? We'll wager that the number is tiny, and moreover, that they're hotel guests who happened to buy a game ticket, not vice versa.
Posted by eric at 9:40 AM
July 12, 2010
In 20 months, Nets suite sales nudge from "about 30 percent" to less than 34 percent; top price has declined more than 21 percent
Atlantic Yards Report
How suite it isn't.
Either Nets Sports & Entertainment CEO Brett Yormark was spinning very, very hard back in 2008 or Nets suite sales have really slowed down--or both.
Since May 2008, 26 months ago, they've only sold nine suites, by my count, given that 26 were sold to insiders and the total sold is now 35.
(It's also possible that some who initially committed have backed out.)
Opening promises
On 5/5/08, Crain's New York Business reported:
Already, 20% of the 130 luxury boxes have been sold to “friends and family,” says Nets Sports Entertainment CEO Brett Yormark.
That's 26 suites.
In an 11/17/08 interview with the never-skeptical Alexis Glick of Fox Business News, Yormark stated, "We’ll be in Brooklyn for the 11-12 NBA season. We’ll probably be in Brooklyn actively in the summer of 2011. So give us a little time to gain some traction. We’ve presold our suites to the tune of about 30 percent."
That would mean 39 suites, if the total at that time was still 130. Or that would mean 30 suites, if the number had dipped to 100 (as was announced ten months later, in September 2009).
The percentage drops
But Yormark is what we might call an unreliable narrator.
Posted by eric at 10:05 AM
July 11, 2010
Nets Seeking Bargain Shoppers in Suite Sales
Nets Daily
There are still plenty of arena suites available for the Nets arena, even though they've been on sale since May of 2008.
The sales pitch would have been so much sweeter if LeBron had taken his talents in another direction.
Inside a midtown Manhattan office atop Bruce Ratner's Times Building, Nets sales people are offering not a superstar but bargain rates for Barclays Center suites.
While suites at Madison Square Garden, Citi Field and Yankee Stadium go for as much as $1 million a year, some smaller but similarly placed suites at Barclays will go for between $215,000 and $425,000. The target: small businesses, particularly in Brooklyn. So far, only 35 of the 104 suites have been sold, a number that's barely moved in the last few years. Although the Nets can't offer LeBron James, they are offering prospects road trips on the Nets' team plane.
NoLandGrab: There may have been moves to make arena suites more affordable (perhaps because they're no longer designed by starchitect Frank Ghery who was dropped from the project), but when can we expect to hear anything about Atlantic Yard's much-touted affordable housing?
Posted by steve at 2:28 PM
May 30, 2010
The Russian moves to Brooklyn
Slam
by Kyle Stack
This article notes NYU Prof Robert Boland's analysis of Mikhail Prokhorov's purchase of the Nets and the outlook for a new arena for the Nets. He takes a dim view of both.
Robert Boland, a Sports Management professor at New York University, believes Prokhorov wouldn’t have been given the chance to own a team in past years.
“He’s a guy who the League never would have approved in good times,” Boland said. “They’re afraid of him.”
Boland explained that the source and stability of Prokhorov’s wealth is in question and that Prokhorov’s financial state “would have been much more questioned by American sports leagues before this economic collapse.”
Operation of the Nets' arena will be problematic for several reasons. One difficulty will be finding people willing to buy tickets to watch the Nets.
The $1 billion arena is destined to suffer financially right from its expected opening in the 2012-13 NBA season, according to Boland.
“They will have trouble selling out the arena the first couple of years,” Boland said. “The Knicks are having trouble selling out and they’re in Madison Square Garden with four million people walking under it every day.”
Even though the Nets’ Brooklyn arena would seemingly benefit from the 2.5 million people who live in the borough and the resulting enthusiasm of Brooklyn finally getting a pro sports team after what will have been a 54-year pro sports drought, there are plenty of questions yet to be answered. First on the list is whether fans are willing to pay for tickets to watch a team which has no assurance of being among the NBA’s elite during the next several years.
There's also the problem of a glut of arenas in the region whose managements are chasing what little money corporations are willing to spend on luxury boxes.
Whether the common fan can afford to attend games at the Nets’ BK arena is far from the their only concern. Finding corporate partners willing to shill out money for luxury suites could become a tough exercise.
The Brooklyn arena, if and when it opens in 2012, would be just the latest modern sports mega-facility to open in the New York metropolitan area. Prudential Center (2007), Yankee Stadium (2009), Citi Field (2009), Red Bull Arena (2010) and New Meadowlands Stadium (2010) have all taken their rightful places in line. That’s not to mention the renovations at Madison Square Garden which by the time it’s expected to be finished in 2013 will have given the building’s interior a complete makeover.
Any corporation willing to splurge on luxury suites is an unpopular choice in these times. “Their shareholders would be groaning,” Boland said. But it does still occur, although the Nets can’t be assured that their 104 planned luxury suites will sell out immediately.
Posted by steve at 8:03 AM
May 27, 2010
Plan to move Madison Square Garden across the street revived; one argument is competition with the Brooklyn arena
Atlantic Yards Report
Madison Square Garden is supposed to be under renovation, but the plan to move it to the Farley Post Office across Eighth Avenue--this time, without expansion of the transit hub--is apparently revived.
And one argument by developer Steve Roth of Vornado Realty Trust involves competition with the new Brooklyn arena, according to the Times:
According to these officials, the developer’s pitch to Mr. [James] Dolan and Mr. [Hank] Ratner went something like this: The renovation of the 42-year-old arena could be more expensive and more disruptive for the Knicks, the Rangers and the Liberty than anticipated. And in the end, the site would still be inferior to the new arena for the Nets that is under construction in Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: But it would still be the World's Most Famous Arena, with cachet that Bruce Ratner will never touch.
Posted by eric at 1:11 PM
Was the Barclays Center used to lure the 2014 Super Bowl?
Atlantic Yards Report
Would you believe that New York Used Barclays Center To Help Lure 2014 Super Bowl, as claimed by NetsDaily?
Why, surely, yes, that was the deciding factor, no?
Well, you'd have to go to the links. The evidence isn't there.
From a New York Post article headlined Apple fans all feeling Super:
"America came to the rescue of New York, and that's something I think that New Yorkers have never forgotten," Bloomberg said. "This is a little bit of our chance to say thank you."
State economic development chief Peter Davidson told The Post that the under-construction Barclays Center in Brooklyn will be added to the list of venues hosting Super Bowl-week gala events, including the Javits Center and the James A. Farley Post Office.
The Jets' Johnson wasted no time in raising the possibility of a Jets-Giants championship game in four years.
From a Brooklyn blog post headlined EXCLUSIVE: New Brooklyn arena in line to host events during Super Bowl week in 2014:
Peter Davidson, executive director of the Empire State Development Corp., told the Post yesterday that the planned Barclays Center for Prospect Heights would be a perfect place to host some of the gala events that will be held in the New York area during the week leading up to Super Bowl XLVIII.
NoLandGrab: Would you believe NetsDaily is allegedly a real sports site and not a fantasy sports site? Us, neither.
Posted by eric at 1:04 PM
May 7, 2010
MSG Reno to Exile Liberty... to Newark?
Runnin' Scared
by Neil deMause
We'd have chosen death over Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards arena, but it sounds like we might get (the) Liberty instead. Maybe.
And with MSG renovations slated to last through 2013, there's even the possibility of a one-season stay in Brooklyn, given that Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards is still — officially, at least supposed to be complete by late 2012. Liberty officials didn't immediately return calls seeking more info on the team's plans.
And for those wondering, the Garden renovations — now officially pegged at a mind-numbing $775 million to $850 million — will be footed entirely by MSG, which is currently in the process of being spun off by Cablevision as its own corporate entity. Yes, MSG will still be getting its $11million-a-year property-tax break — at least until the city council decides that it's time to finally do away with the yearly subsidy that Ed Koch established in the 1980s and neglected to ever set an end date for. But at least the renovations won't be backed by new public dollars — unlike some other arenas we could mention, not to mention the now-dead plan for moving MSG across the street. Maybe if we're extra lucky, they'll even make the blue seats blue again.
Posted by eric at 2:28 PM
April 2, 2010
Finally, the Nets have a prayer! New arena to have ‘meditation’ room
The Brooklyn Paper
by Stephen Brown
Call it Zen and the art of basketball!
The Brooklyn Paper has learned that the Barclays Center will be the first sports arena to feature a meditation chamber — an intriguing element that is one of the few unreported details of the widely covered home of the future Brooklyn Nets.
The concept was envisioned by the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, the fiery pastor of the House of the Lord Pentecostal Church on Atlantic Avenue, who has played a behind-the-scenes role to acquire various “community benefits” from developer Bruce Ratner.
This meditation room appears to be one of them.
“The idea is to say to people there are values in reflection, contemplation,” explained Daughtry, who gave the convocation at the groundbreaking ceremony for the arena last month.
“Whenever you’re in the arena, you can go to meditate.”
Daughtry suggested that the “meditation room” was a watered-down version of what he initially wanted in the arena: a chapel.
“I got plastered for that,” he said. “You can’t use public funds for religious purposes.”
NoLandGrab: Public funds? Didn't Bruce Ratner famously say that "this isn't a public project?"
Additional coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Brooklyn Paper gets all excited about Daughtry's "meditation room" (aka "atrium")
Norman Oder pours a little cold water on The Brooklyn Paper's story.
That link goes back to the Brooklyn Paper's coverage, which neglected to point out Daughtry's claim that the project site was a "long-neglected, rodent-infested, garbage-strewn strip of geography." Nor did the Brooklyn Paper's coverage of the state Senate oversight hearing last May point out Daughtry's regular heckling.
An "atrium" and the CBA
Daughtry has previously (as reported) called it an "atrium," but the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) says "Meditation Room."
Posted by eric at 10:47 AM
Special Report: Questioning the Status of the Lighthouse Project
Let There Be Light(house)
Islander fans clinging to the idea that their favorite hockey team will end up at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn would do better to hope for a Sunday visit from the Easter Bunny — at least no one's published evidence that the Easter Bunny doesn't exist.
Meanwhile, the only words from Queens and Brooklyn are from inconsequential mouthpieces in each district, such as Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and the Queens Chamber of Commerce President. Not one word has come from the horse's mouths except when Bruce Ratner said that it was "unlikely" when citing the Isles to Brooklyn scenario. That could be a clear indication that Wang and company have no interest there and might have shutdown shop until Queens begins in earnest down the road. However, even though Brooklyn has many natural disadvantages, it has one major advantage: the arena is financed and currently under construction. After the painful Lighthouse process, with a better-funded opposition beginning to sharpen its knives in Queens, would Mr. Wang really want to go back to that well?
NoLandGrab: "Unlikely" is one of the truer words Bruce Ratner has ever uttered. And the arena is not yet under construction, nor is it fully financed yet, since arena infrastructure bonds remain unsold.
Posted by eric at 10:22 AM
March 30, 2010
Record price for Warriors could send team to S.F.
San Jose Mercury News
by Drew Voros
An article about the future of the Golden State Warriors holds up Brooklyn as the NBA's future gold standard.
And if you want to see what the future of NBA arenas will be, keep your eye on what is happening in Brooklyn.
Work began this month on the $1 billion (!) home of the New Jersey Nets, set to be completed in 2012.
Although the Nets arena is part of the $5 billion Atlantic Yards development that will include apartments, retail and hospitality businesses, this spectacular project with pro basketball as its centerpiece will be the new standard for the NBA.
NoLandGrab: Spectacular? We hereby present Drew Voros with a free subscription to NoLandGrab so he may learn the difference between "spectacular" and "craptacular."
Posted by eric at 10:47 PM
March 27, 2010
On 60 Minutes Sunday, an exclusive interview with Mikhail Prokhorov; no sign it will look closely at Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
So Russian mogul Mikhail Prokhorov, expected majority owner of the New Jersey Nets, sits down for an exclusive interview with 60 Minutes, to be broadcast Sunday.
From the teaser:
Prokhorov, perhaps Russia's richest man, discusses the Nets, his vast wealth and the surprisingly unusual way he made most of his money in his first American television interview to be broadcast this Sunday, March 28, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
"I am real excited to take the worst team of the league and turn it to be the best," says Prokhorov. Asked by Kroft if he really thinks he can pull it off, the 6-foot-8-inch billionaire responds, "I am confident. Do you remember in the Frank Sinatra song, 'New York, New York?' If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere," he tells Kroft with a laugh.
Given the indication that the interview will focus on Prokhorov's celebrity and likely look closely only at his fortune, my comment:
So, 60 Minutes has a "get," an exclusive interview.
Here's what 60 Minutes (apparently) doesn't get: Prokhorov, as team and arena owner, would be the beneficiary of hundreds of millions of dollars in direct subsidies; city, state, and federal tax breaks (and tax-exempt bonds); and the extraordinary power of eminent domain.
Do you think New York legislators and officials would've have slobbered quite the same way for a sports team and arena--one that the NYC Independent Budget pegs as a money-loser for the city--if they knew they were helping out Russia's richest man?
More here:
http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2009/09/thought-experiment-what-if-prokohorov.html
http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2009/09/net-gain-to-ratner-loss-to-public-ibo.html
http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2010/03/jay-z-markowitz-cult-of-celebrity-and.html
Posted by steve at 8:00 AM
March 24, 2010
Get used to it because it's being built
Kensington Stories
You know I’ve kept quite silent on this whole Atlantic Yards project, because I know my wife and sister in law are “morally” against the whole idea. So at Sunday dinners in Fort Greene, or the dinner table right here in Kensington, I have basically kept my big Brooklyn mouth shut and just listened. And the reason is I actually want to see a professional arena built in Brooklyn. I mean Keyspan Park is great, and so is that Aviator complex down on Flatbush Avenue. But compare to anything else around those places are basically “little toys” in the real world of pro sports.
Now, don’t get me wrong folks, if someone told me that my house was going to be squashed to build something I don’t think I’d be that happy about it. And maybe I’d even walk around with a Bruce Ratner mask with little devil horns.
But the truth is that whole area down by Union Street is a big old rat hole.
NoLandGrab: Union Street? For a guy who blogs about "growing up in Kensington and Windsor Terrace," he doesn't have much of a grasp on Brooklyn geography.
Posted by eric at 12:25 PM
March 20, 2010
Prudential Center adds jobs as Nets’ arrival approaches
NJBiz
By Joe St. Arney
This story about the move by the New Jersey Nets to Newark's Prudential Center gives a good idea of what kind of "economic engine" Atlantic Yards will be. The Prudential Center is adding staff in preparation for the arrival of the Nets. With only an arena and, perhaps, one residential tower, permanent job creation for Atlantic Yards looks more likely to be in the 100's, nothing like the 8,000 jobs as promised by developer Bruce Ratner and his tool, the ESDC.
Devils Arena Entertainment, operators of Newark’s Prudential Center, plans to add more than 200 employees in preparation for the arrival of the New Jersey Nets pro basketball franchise and an expanding events schedule, according to a news release.
Throughout the week, interview time slots have been available to applicants, with nearly half the positions filled by residents of the Essex County city.
The operating group plans to increase usher and ticket-taker staff again later this summer to accommodate their first season with a resident NBA team. Centerplate, the arena’s concessionaire, also plans to increase their staff by over 150 employees during that same time period.
Posted by steve at 8:51 AM
March 16, 2010
Fantasy Hockey
Seems that a number of forlorn hockey fans on Long Island are not yet familiar with Bruce Ratner's penchant for the tall tale.
NYI Point Blank, Brooklyn latest...Envy on the Coast vid...lineup stuff
Although Gary Bettman does not see the borough as a realistic option for the Islanders, Brooklyn’s new arena will have the capability of hosting hockey games and Bruce Ratner says Charles Wang’s team is invited. Still, Ratner is rooting for Wang to get his wish of staying in Nassau County.
“It’s an option,” said Ratner in an interview last week on WFAN. “It’s not likely, but it’s always an option. First, we have to hope that Charles Wang does get his arena built and the Islanders stay (on Long Island) and they have a great place to play. That’s foremost.
NoLandGrab: People. As designed, the arena can't accommodate hockey. Ratner keeps dangling the "possibility" of hockey to help justify revenue projections to help sell bonds. Trust us, Kansas City will grow on you. Good barbecue.
Actually, "it's not likely" are some of the truer words Ratner has ever spoken.
Save the Isles, Brooklyn is an option!
Even though Gary Bettman really talked down the idea of the Isles going to Brooklyn, Chris Botta reports that Bruce Ratner says there is still a chance.
NLG: Good grief, this is like a game of telephone.
Brooklyn Islanders, …or maybe they CAN accomodate hockey after all
Via Islanders Point Blank, a snippet from the press release handed out at the Atlantic Yards groundbreaking, announcing a partnership with IMG:
In addition to college basketball, IMG will assist BSE in staging college hockey, high-profile tennis events and high school sports at the Barclays Centers.
NLG: Yeah, and maybe Brett Yormark is telling the truth. Yeah, that's the ticket. Hockey. On ice. Yeah, that's it.
Posted by eric at 10:50 PM
March 13, 2010
Nets CEO on New Brooklyn Stadium
Fox Business
Nets CEO Frank Yormark is featured in this video segment.
Posted by steve at 7:56 AM
March 9, 2010
More Inside Baseketball
Daily Transom [NY Observer.com], Inside the Barclays Center
Now that Atlantic Yards is all but cleared for construction, Forest City Ratner is showing off what the interior will look like.
The new renderings are almost as space-age as the recent exterior shots, with stage lights beaming around in all directions. Aside from that, it mostly just looks like an arena, though the Post has a run-down of its bells and whistles. Notably, there's a feature designed to increase home-court advantage by aiming reflective materials back at the court, thus amplifying crowd noise. Which might be a good idea if the team weren't 7-56 and probably prefers not to hear what their fans are screaming.
Metro NY, Nets arena reveals its ‘intimate’ inside face
With the groundbreaking for Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards development scheduled this week, the Nets released new interior images of the 675,000-square-foot Barclays Center to rise at the corner of Brooklyn’s Atlantic and Flatbush avenues. The $1 billion arena, slated to open in 2012, will create “intimate seating” to keep 18,000 basketball fans close to the action, officials said.
Famous architect Frank Gehry was ditched last year for the less expensive designs of Ellerbe Becket and SHoP Architects.
BOCOCALand, Barcley’s [sic] Center Interior Revealed
Expect plenty of restaurants and a whopping six clubs inside the arena which will also play host to concerts. I know there’s been plenty of controversy around this behemoth development project, but I am not well versed enough to take a particular stand on it one way or the other. Please feel free to comment and let us know your thoughts.
NoLandGrab: We know that most people don't waste spend as much time on Atlantic Yards as we do, and we know that BOCOCALand is a relatively new blog, but is anyone in Brooklyn at this point not versed enough to take a particular stand when it comes to Bruce Ratner's eminent domain-abusing, subsidy-gobbling megaproject?
Posted by eric at 5:05 PM
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 11:37 AM
March 8, 2010
ESDC says arena rooftop signage must meet design guidelines (which would seemingly ban it); also, arena philosophy, views from facade architect SHOP
Atlantic Yards Report
OK, so the rooftop Barclays Center logo that appears in a current rendering of the Atlantic Yards arena may just be a piece of architectural overstretch.
It seems to violate the Design Guidelines as stated in the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) issued by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and an ESDC spokewoman hinted--though didn't state firmly--that such illuminated signage would be disallowed.
Posted by eric at 11:56 AM
Brooklyn lodgers
The Daily Blahg
by Filip Bondy
The Daily News columnist would prefer that the Nets take up permanent residence in Newark.
On Thursday, the Nets finally, supposedly will break ground on their new arena in Brooklyn, after signing a two-year lease with Newark to play in the Rock until the 2012-2013 season.
It's a shame the move to Newark isn't more than an interim commitment. That North Jersey city and region probably can support a good NBA team. And I've become so inured to Bruce Ratner's false deadlines, it's hard to believe this groundbreaking will actually happen.
But I think it will, I think the arena will get built, and my position on this hasn't changed since Day 1:
The move to Brooklyn is absolutely great for the Nets. I'm just not sure it's so great for the borough.
Posted by eric at 9:56 AM
March 6, 2010
The Nets Are Actually in Great Shape, If You’re Okay With Seizing Private Property on Behalf of a Billionaire
New York Magazine
By Ben Mathis-Lilley
They also, as of next week, will have an arena under construction in the middle of Brooklyn. Your elected government, having already closed a homeless shelter on behalf of Forest City Ratner, will now be evicting Prospect Heights residents and homeowners (using the threat of police force) to make room for the luxury-housing development of which the Barclays Center will be a part. Having a major sports team in Brooklyn will be exciting, but let's never forget this: Private property in a thriving neighborhood is being seized and destroyed in a 21st-century democracy so Bruce Ratner and the richest man in Russia can build a basketball stadium and luxury apartments. That the Nets' roster is in fine shape is great news, we guess, if you missed rooting for East Germany.
Posted by steve at 6:48 AM
February 24, 2010
Luxury suites at the Atlantic Yards arena: from 170 (2006) to 130 (2008) to 100 (2009) to 104 (2010)
Atlantic Yards Report
On Tuesday the Nets announced yet another effort to sell luxury suites at the Atlantic Yards arena/Barclays Center, and earlier today I pointed out a slight uptick since September in the number of suites, from 100 to 104.
However, we should remember how the number has decreased, overall. In the KPMG report prepared in 2006 for the Empire State Development Corporation, the Nets were estimating 170 suites, though analysts were skeptical.
...Indeed, by May 2008, the number of suites had been cut to 130.
Posted by eric at 5:52 PM
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 10:18 AM
February 15, 2010
NHL Commissioner Casts Doubt on Brooklyn Islanders
NetsDaily
Gary Bettman, the NHL Commissioner, criticized Long Island politicians for delaying action on Islander plans for a[n] Atlantic Yards-like project centered on Nassau Coliseum but said Brooklyn may not make sense as an alternate location. “Does it make sense based on where the Islanders hockey fan base is to go to Brooklyn? I don’t know the answer to it,” asked Bettman, noting most fans live in Queens and Nassau.
NoLandGrab: The Islanders have a fan base? Well, yes, if the basis of comparison is the Nets', ahem, fan base. But need we remind Mr. Bettman that "Brooklyn's" ice would be too small to accommodate pro hockey?
Posted by eric at 10:49 PM
February 12, 2010
If Building 1 ever goes up, for three years the arena entrance would move (in part) to Sixth Avenue, far from transit hub; was impact studied?
Atlantic Yards Report
You have to read the fine print.
Because there, at the end of a Technical Memorandum issued by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) in June 2009, came the surprising news that, if the office tower known as Building 1 is constructed later than planned, the main entrance to the Atlantic Yards arena would have to move from the western edge--closest to the transit hub at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues--to the north and east on Atlantic Avenue and Sixth Avenue.
Given that there's no market for office space right now, a delayed buildout is highly likely, if the tower is built at all. (Bruce Ratner told Crain's in November, “Can you tell me when we are going to need a new office tower?”
But the full impact of that change was not studied in ESDC documents, notably the impact on Neighborhood Character.
...
Missing from the Appendix is any analysis of Neighborhood Character, which is one of the chapters in the FEIS and one of the impacts to be studied.Sure, the impact would be temporary, but three years of an arena entrance closer to a residential neighborhood was never contemplated when the project was announced.
Posted by lumi at 6:05 AM
February 10, 2010
Barclays Center Private Suite Party Snowed Out, But You Are Still Invited for Feb 24
From Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB.net):
Ratner and his 4-47 Nets have been trying to sell these unaffordable non-housing units since May 2008. Apparently they haven't sold like hotcakes. Tomorrow's scheduled suite showing has been postponed until February 24th. Now you are invited to check out the gold-plated suites and see if you are interested...and you can meet Bruce Ratner and Brett Yormark! Just remember though, Ratner doesn't own the land he needs to build the arena that would house these suites. (They'll be shown in the showroom housed in the New York Times building.)
From the original listing in Socially Superlative:
As you may know, we have commenced construction on the Barclays Center, our new arena in Brooklyn.
We will be hosting a Private Suite Sales Event at the Barclays Center Showroom this Thursday, February 11th from 7pm-9pm.
We would love for you to be our guests that evening to discuss the volume and variety of hospitality options we will have available at the Barclays Center.
With 200+ events per year projected, the Barclays Center will feel like Your Home Away From Home.
Posted by lumi at 8:09 PM
February 4, 2010
Another look at the arena as site for graduations
Atlantic Yards Report
Would the Atlantic Yards arena be a site for high school and college graduations, as was once promised? Maybe, but there's reason for doubt:
- the arena itself would be too big and expensive
- the theater inside the arena isn't being promoted for graduations
- new, city-financed competition is emerging
Posted by eric at 9:25 AM
January 16, 2010
Will there be bollards (and how big)? Security questions regarding arena still unanswered
Atlantic Yards Report
Last July, when Forest City Ratner's MaryAnne Gilmartin was asked about security plans for the Atlantic Yards arena, she indicated a review was forthcoming.
Her response: "As the design is not complete yet, that review will take place obviously before the closing, but we're in constant contact with the city and expect to see the police department about the changes in design in the fall."
Well, the master closing took place last month, so presumably that review has taken place. But when the Brooklyn Paper asked the Empire State Development Corporation if bollards were planned along the lines of the recent installation outside Atlantic Terminal--an increase in size from initial plans--the ESDC wouldn't provide any details.
In the Huffington Post, Daniel Goldstein (of DDDB) and Alan Rosner raise questions and concerns raised about security that have drawn public responses. They conclude with a recommendation for Governor David Paterson:
What he needs do is direct his own State Office of Homeland Security to conduct a full study once complete plans are made available but before irreversible construction starts. Right now the only security plan that exists for the arena is a five-inch curb and some cameras to take pictures with.
Posted by steve at 11:08 AM
January 15, 2010
Construction on Barclays Arena commences
NYPost.com
by Stephen Witt
The Community Newspaper Group's pro-project reporter opines on arena construction.
If it looks like construction, sounds like construction and money is spent on construction, then it’s a good bet that the Barclays Center arena at the Atlantic/Flatbush avenues intersection is already under construction.
...As first reported locally by anti-project blogger Norman Oder in his Atlantic Yards Report, developer Forest City Ratner has also purchased $50 million worth of steel from Virgina-based Banker Steel for the arena.
Posted by eric at 12:49 PM
January 11, 2010
NBA's Nets Net Haier America As Partner For Barclays Center Arena
via NYSportsJournalism.com
Here's the Nets' press release announcing the Haier sponsor deal.
Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, an affiliate of Nets Sports and Entertainment, said that appliance and consumer electronics company Haier America has signed a deal to become a long-term partner for the planned Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Barclays Center is being planned as the new home of the NBA's Nets, which seeks to move from the Izod Center in New Jersey to Brooklyn for the 2011-12 season. Haier America joins a group of companies that have already signed on as partners for the Barclays Center, including ADT, EmblemHealth, MetroPCS, Cushman & Wakefield, MGM Grand at Foxwoods, Jones Soda Co., Phillips-Van Heusen, Anheuser-Busch and High Point Solutions. Financial firm Barclays has a 20-year naming rights deal for the arena.
OK, can they give it a rest with the "2011-2012 season" nonsense already? Their own financial documents show that ain't happening.
Under terms of the deal, the “Haier Experience Store” will be part of the Barclays Center and accessible to the public from outside of the arena during event and non-event days, enabling people to "interact with the Haier brand and its array of products." Haier will also receive a fully integrated marketing platform within the arena and will be a sponsor of the Nets.
"Haier Experience Store?" Seriously?
“The sponsorship of the Barclays Center provides Haier America with an extensive platform to promote both the Haier brand and our expansive line of innovative appliances and electronics,” Michael Jemal, chairman of the board of Haier America, said in a statement. “This opportunity aligns with our expectations for future brand growth and perpetuates the roots we are building in the local community fabric with what will be one of the most technologically advanced arenas in the nation.”
"Perpetuates the roots we are building in the local community fabric?" Who writes this stuff?
There's more here, if you can stomach it.
Posted by eric at 10:55 PM
Momentum strategy: Haier sponsorship deal for Barclays Center finally announced seven months after report, but is it really "lucrative" (as per NYT)?
Atlantic Yards Report
More than a year ago, on 12/2/08, Nets CEO Brett Yormark claimed there were nine founding partners, or sponsors, for the Barclays Center.
A 9/16/09 Barclays Center press release about suite sales cited eight founding partners, despite a 6/19/09 New York Times City Room blog report on Haier as "another lucrative sponsorship deal."
Strategic timing
Now, Sports Business Daily (subscribers only) finally confirms the Haier partnership "in a deal that comes two weeks after owner Bruce Ratner closed on the planned $800 million arena."
Actually, the timing might better be described as announced rather than signed the wake of the closing. It's an effort to demonstrate momentum for the arena.
Indeed, according to the summary on NetsDaily, “The closing helps us with the fence-sitters who wanted to wait until we closed on the arena deal,” said Brett Yormark.
Related...
SportsBusiness Journal, Haier is 9th founding deal for Nets [subscription required]
The New Jersey Nets have added appliance and electronics maker Haier as a Barclays Center founding partner, a deal that comes two weeks after owner Bruce Ratner closed on the planned $800 million arena in Brooklyn, N.Y. Nets Sports & Entertainment President and CEO Brett Yormark [said]...
Posted by eric at 10:48 AM
January 9, 2010
Banker Steel lands $50 million contract for NBA arena
The News & Advance
By Dave Thompson
A Lynchburg steel company has scored a contract for an NBA arena that will bring 50 new jobs to Lynchburg, company officials announced Friday.
Banker Steel officials said Friday that the company was awarded a $50 million contract to provide the structural steel for the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The center, a sports and entertainment complex, will serve as the new home of the Brooklyn Nets, once their move from New Jersey is complete.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Steel contract for Brooklyn arena awarded to Virginia firm
In a sign that Forest City Ratner is serious about beginning construction of the Atlantic Yards arena, despite potential legal challenges, Banker Steel of Lynchburg, VA, has received a $50 million contract for the structural steel for the Barclays Center, according to the News & Advance.
That means an increase in employment by 25%--50 people--at the factory.
Banker Steel has produced steel for several projects in New York, including the World Trade Center monument, a Columbia University building, and Forest City Ratner's East River Plaza big box shopping center.
Less than three months ago, company owner Dan Banker lent his plane to the three -member state Republican ticket, along with Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate, according to the Washington Post.
Bruce Ratner's a Democrat, of course, but steel knows no politics.
Posted by steve at 8:31 AM
January 6, 2010
What’s in a Naming Right? Certainly Not Cash
The New York Times
by Richard Sandomir
A Times story on the absence of a naming-rights sponsor for the new Giants/Jets football stadium in the Meadowlands touches on the Barclays deal for the planned Brooklyn arena.
For the Giants and the Jets, finding a naming-rights buyer for the new stadium will take time. If they planned to dedicate revenue from such a deal to help pay their construction debt, they will have to use money from other sources.
The market has been largely dormant and may never return to its prerecession peak, when Citigroup agreed in late 2006 to pay the Mets $400 million over 20 years to name the team’s ballpark Citi Field and Barclays followed soon after with a similarly priced deal to put its moniker on the Nets’ proposed arena in Brooklyn.
As Atlantic Yards Report will surely point out, the Barclays deal may never have been worth anywhere near $20 million per year. It surely isn't now, though the Nets still claim otherwise.
The recession and the departure of the star architect Frank Gehry led to the renegotiation of some terms of the Barclays-Nets deal. According to a bond document, the arena naming rights were halved.
The Nets insist that they have given Barclays more for its sponsorship money and that the bank’s total annual payments, including fees for other rights, remain unchanged.
NoLandGrab: All but the most naive among us learned a long time ago not to believe anything that comes out of the Ratner/Nets industrial complex.
Posted by eric at 10:26 AM
January 3, 2010
The politics of the New York Islanders
Business of Sports Examiner
by Evan Weiner
A report on the Islanders and Nassau Coliseum dangles the hockey-in-Brooklyn scenario.
Ratner, a political operative in New York City, is a lot smarter than Phoenix, Arizona politicians that were talked into building an arena that was built with perfect basketball sightlines that is virtually useless for any other sports event.
The financial difficulties of the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes can be directly traced back to the Phoenix decision of the late 1980s.
The story that went around was that Ratner’s Brooklyn building was not going to be able to fit a hockey rink and would be useless for hockey and probably ice shows.
However, a person who worked on Ratner’s original arena plans said there was always a hockey element to Ratner’s plan.
NoLandGrab: Ratner may be smarter than the Phoenix pols, and the "original arena plans" may have had "a hockey element," but the current Barclays Center plan would have to go back to the drawing board to accommodate anything more than midget hockey, as Noticing New York made clear last month.
Posted by eric at 9:42 PM
January 1, 2010
So, where's the $324.8 million more for the arena going to come from?
Atlantic Yards Report
Eliot Brown of the New York Observer points to a major gap in funding for the Atlantic Yards arena, the need for $324.8 million, money not yet in hand but expected to be raised within a year.
The money would come from Mikhail Prokhorov (aka "New Investor"), additional financing, and new equity from Forest City Ratner or third parties.
FCR told investment analysts earlier this month it planned to invest $200 million in equity, but, as Brown writes, " it's not as if developers generally have $200 million just lying around." (Forest City hasn't yet publicly commented.)
And it's not clear to me what role the unmentioned taxable junk bonds would play in this.
Posted by eric at 10:46 AM
December 31, 2009
Ratner’s Next Nets Arena Challenge: Raising $324 M.
NY Observer
by Eliot Brown
The footprint of the planned new Nets arena in Brooklyn looks like a construction site. Developer and Nets owner Bruce Ratner closed on tax-free financing and other approvals for the project last week, and now fencing with flashy renderings of the project runs along Flatbush Avenue; traffic has been redirected to make way for equipment. The massive $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project, or at least the $900 million centerpiece basketball arena, is looking like a reality.
But a glance at a lengthy set of public documents linked with the $511 million in tax-free bonds that go toward the arena show that there is still more of the hill for Mr. Ratner to climb. If the developer doesn't raise $324.8 million within a year for the arena, he could be forced to refund the bondholders' money, returning the financing that makes the project possible, according to the documents.
...If the money isn't deposited by Dec. 17, 2010, the documents say, this would trigger a refund of the bonds, or "extraordinary mandatory redemption," in bond speak.
Some of this money will come from Mikhail Prokhorov, the tentative new buyer of the Nets, who has agreed to pay $200 million for 80 percent of the team and 45 percent of the arena-to-be.
Posted by eric at 10:22 AM
Yormark moves the goalposts, asserts Brooklyn "sometime in calendar year 2012," claims construction has commenced
Atlantic Yards Report
On 11/24/09, after the decision in the Atlantic Yards eminent domain case, Forest City Ratner and the Nets said "the intent that the Nets will play ball in the Barclays Center in the 2011-2012 NBA Season."
Yesterday, Nets CEO Brett Yormark offered some clarification, telling the YES network, "We will be getting into the Barclays Center sometime in calendar year 2012."
That means the 2012-13 season, I'd bet. Remember, a market study attached to the Barclays Center Arena Preliminary Official Statement (prepared by Goldman Sachs) states, "It is assumed that the arena will open in May of 2012. As such, the year ending June 30, 2012 only reflects two months of operations." And there's no revenue for 2011-12 ticket sales.
Here's Yormark on video:
YESNetwork.com, Nets CEO Brett Yormark on the move to Brookyn
Posted by eric at 10:06 AM
December 30, 2009
Curbed Awards '09 Architecture: Starchitects, Ugly Buildings & More!
Curbed
Atlantic Yards figures in two coveted Curbed Awards.
As is our yearly tradition, it's time to make up a bunch of awards and hand them out to the most deserving and important people, places and things in the real estate, architecture and neighborhood universes of New York City! Yep, it's time for the Sixth Annual Curbed Awards!
Our Favorite Architectural Sell-Outs
Dude, can you believe they're using that Vampire Weekend song in a fucking commercial now? Or that those dudes at that hip architecture firm SHoP scored a commission from fucking Bruce Ratner to redesign his fucking Brooklyn basketball arena at the same time they're remaking the East River waterfront? It's like there's nothing pure anymore.
...Don't Make Nicolai Angry, People
3) SHoP rolls out a new design for the Brooklyn Nets stadium: "Still falls short of the high architectural standards... the larger project remains worrisome."
Another look back at 2009...
Mobilizing the Region, 2009 NY Year in Review: A Struggle to Hold the Line
Land use and parking continued to be a missing link in the city’s sustainability efforts, best characterized by auto-oriented big-box developments like the Gateway Center Mall in the South Bronx and East River Plaza in Manhattan. The state-run Atlantic Yards project also survived several legal challenges this year, and developer Bruce Ratner officially closed on the project. Brooklyn Speaks, a coalition of city and borough organizations calling for a better Atlantic Yards plan, filed its first lawsuit over the project in November (the coalition has previously recommended a stronger transportation plan for the site).
Posted by eric at 9:22 AM
December 26, 2009
Bruce Ratner Wastes No Time Rubbing It In
Curbed
Bruce Ratner rushed to place branding on the blight he brought to Prospect Heights.
It took six years to close on the Atlantic Yards deal, but only a few hours to finally build something on the site: a salute to the sponsors and a preview of all that quality NBA basketball to come. A merry Landgrabiversary to all!
Posted by steve at 6:39 AM
Brooklyn Nets: A Reality Check
NetsAreScorching
by Mark Ginocchio
This blog entry looks back on when the proposed Atlantic Yards land grab was first announced and the struggle that ensued.
Obviously, this master plan of mine (and Bruce Ratner’s) hit some snags. Residents of the Prospect Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn where the arena was to be built were not about to hand their land over to a developer without a fight. And then there was the whole issue of financing this big thing, which became even more questionable when the famous, and now former arena-architect Frank Gehry was waxing poetic about “Miss Brooklyn” skyscrapers. Meanwhile, the Nets got steadily worse where it mattered most to me – on the basketball court. The “Big Three” were traded away to create roster flexibility (aka, salary relief) and this year, the Nets got off to the worst start in NBA history. Then, there was all this talk that if the Nets weren’t in position to break ground in Brooklyn by the end of this year, the project was probably never going to happen. Yet, after so many letdowns with this team and this organization, it was hard for me to say if any of this Brooklyn stuff even mattered anymore.
Now, yesterday’s “master closing” announcement from Ratner and Co. is probably not the definitive victory dance in this fight – but is a clear sign that after all of these years, delays, lawsuits and controversies, this project is as close to reality as it’s ever been. And I must admit, I’m suddenly getting reacquainted with the 2003 version of myself (it’s like the Sport Fan’s version of The Lake House). Finally, the era of the Brooklyn Nets is upon us. For the first time in my life, I will have liked something before it became hip and cool to Brooklyn folk. Now all I need is my Strokes t-shirt and an apartment in Williamsburg and I’ll fit right in.
A letter in the comments section reminds us why the idea of building a shiny, new arena comes at a price that should give sports fans pause.
The reality is that in New York City today, a politically-connected developer can appropriate entire city blocks in your neighborhood, remove public streets, condemn private property, and create a construction wasteland lasting decades. And neither you nor the elected officials that represent you have any say whatsoever. Even if you love the idea of having the Nets play in Brooklyn, the politics should be unacceptable.
Posted by steve at 6:28 AM
December 25, 2009
New deal would give Islanders control of Coliseum
Newsday
Well, just two days after the Master Closing, here's one lie that we can likely put to rest — the Islanders are on the verge of locking in a new lease in Uniondale, so they will not be helping the Barclays Center arena meet its overblown revenue projections, something that was hinted at in the arena bond offering.
A new deal to give the New York Islanders control of the Nassau Coliseum could help end a long-standing roadblock to renovating the arena and building the Lighthouse Project.
The Islanders and SMG, the Coliseum's manager, have agreed to a sublease that would hand control of the arena and its revenue to the team. Outgoing County Executive Thomas Suozzi approved it this week.
In a letter, dated Monday, to incoming County Executive-elect Edward Mangano, Legislative Presiding Office Diane Yatauro and incoming Presiding Officer Peter Schmitt, Suozzi said he planned to approve the sublease "before the Christmas holiday."
Posted by eric at 9:11 AM
December 21, 2009
Alphabet soup: if the UDC aims to offer Sports Stadium Assistance, why was the BALDC created by the JDA (which finances machinery and equipment)?
Atlantic Yards Report
The text on the web page of the Bond Program offered by the state's economic development agency compounds questions raised by state Senator Bill Perkins about the legitimacy of the bonds issued for the Atlantic Yards arena.
It states:
Empire State Development is the parent organization for New York’s two principal economic development financing entities: the Empire State Development Corporation (formerly known as the Urban Development Corporation), and the Job Development Authority. In 1995, these agencies, which had previously functioned independently, were consolidated in order to increase efficiency, reduce overhead and enhance the delivery of the State’s economic development initiatives. Reorganized as Empire State Development, the combined agencies now function as a streamlined economic development organization whose primary mission is the facilitation of business growth and job creation across New York State.As part of this economic development role, Empire State Development Corporation oversees the issuance of debt under the programs of both the Urban Development Corporation and the Job Development Authority. On the UDC side, bonding programs include Corporate Purpose, Correctional and Youth Facilities, Sports Stadium Assistance, and various educational and civic related project revenue bonds. The Job Development Authority issues both taxable and tax exempt bonds to finance its business lending programs. These programs are designed to promote job growth by providing loans to assist New York companies to build and expand facilities and acquire machinery and equipment.
(Emphases added)
The questions
If the UDC is supposed to offer Sports Stadium Assistance, then why was the Brooklyn Arena Local Development Corporation (BALDC) created instead by the Job Development Authority (JDA)?
And if the JDA aims to help companies "build and expand facilities and acquire machinery and equipment," then why is it financing an arena?
Posted by eric at 10:52 AM
December 14, 2009
Brooklyn Arena to Lead Tax-Exempt Sales as Similar Bond Gets 7%
Bloomberg.com
by Jeremy R. Cooke
The Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, leads projects seeking municipal financing this week, as developer Forest City Ratner Cos. aims to meet a year-end deadline to sell tax-exempt bonds for the new basketball arena.
Brooklyn Arena Local Development Corp., a state arm created to help finance the anchor of a commercial and residential development known as Atlantic Yards, intends to issue $500 million of tax-exempt bonds rated at the lowest investment grades. The New Jersey Nets of the National Basketball Association plan to move into the new facility in 2012.
A toll-road project in Texas that also involves public financing and private investors found buyers last week for $400 million in similarly rated tax-exempt bonds at a top yield of 7 percent. The ability of the arena developer, led by Bruce Ratner, to sell bonds exempt from federal taxes expires in less than three weeks under Internal Revenue Service rule changes.
“If it’s structured right and priced right, there’s definitely demand,” said Dan Solender, who oversees about $12.5 billion as director of municipal bond management at Lord Abbett & Co. in Jersey City, New Jersey. “I think we saw that with the deal down in Texas.”
...The pending deal has required “a lot of analysis” by potential investors, Solender said.
NoLandGrab: Presumably, the Texas toll-road deal didn't involve significant overstatement of the number of vehicles that would be using the road, nor the notion that the road could potentially be retrofitted to accommodate Zamboni traffic.
Related coverage...
Field of Schemes, Nets bonds inch closer to sale
With 17 shopping days to go, the Atlantic Yards Nets arena bonds still haven't been sold, as bond issuers and buyers continue to haggle over the price. Bloomberg News speculates that $500 million in tax-free bonds could go for an interest rate of 7%, based on similarly rated bonds recently issued in Texas — this would qualify as worse than Bruce Ratner hoped, but better than he feared.
Meanwhile, the $147 million in taxable bonds that will accompany the tax-free bonds — trust me, you don't want to know why, but if you really need to, start here — have been assigned junk-bond status, which, Atlantic Yards Report notes, could carry interest rates as high as 14%. The interesting twist here is that the rumored buyer for these bonds is Nets soon-to-be co-owner Mikhail Prokhorov. Because Prokhorov would own 45% of the arena corporation that would be paying off the bonds to himself, he'd effectively be earning a 7.7% rate on his money — though given that, according to his deal with Ratner, he gets to take title to the whole arena if it defaults on the bonds, you could argue that he's effectively covered his risk in other ways.
I can't tell if this is brilliantly creative finance or a scam — but given the players involved here, that's probably about right.
Atlantic Yards Report, Municipal bond buyer on arena bonds: "there’s definitely demand" but "a lot of analysis" is required
A Bloomberg News article about the planned sale of $500 million in tax-exempt bonds for the Barclays Center arena suggests the interest rate would be 7%, the same as the interest rate for the second (and much smaller) phase of Yankee Stadium bonds and slightly above the 6.45% interest rate for the second phase of Mets stadium bonds.
(By contrast, the main bonds for both stadiums were sold in 2006 at interest rates of 4.57% and 4.7%.)
Noticing New York, To Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli: Investigate and Halt Issuance of Arena Bonds
Michael D.D. White enumerates the risky risks inherent in Bruce Ratner's arena bonds. Will the AG and the Comptroller open their mail?
The following an open letter from Noticing New York to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli calling for an investigation and halt to the proposed issuance of ESDC’s Brooklyn Local Development Corporation PILOT Revenue Bonds for Forest City Ratner’s proposed Nets basketball arena.
Posted by eric at 10:06 AM
Limited seating capacity, spoken-for suite revenue, Goldman Sachs statement all cast doubt on major league hockey in Brooklyn
Atlantic Yards Report
With Atlantic Yards arena bond issuers hinting at the possibility of retrofitting the planned arena at Atlantic Yards for hockey, Norman Oder explores the possibility.
Perhaps the Brooklyn arena (capacity 18,282 for basketball, according to the POS) could be designed to seat a number larger than 14,000 for hockey, but that's something the Atlantic Yards developer and public parties should tell us.
...
Actually, there's no minimum capacity for NHL arenas--the key is revenue--there are reasons to doubt a 14,000-seat arena for hockey could work in Brooklyn.Most NHL arenas seat more than 18,282, according to the Edmonton Journal. The smallest NHL arena is on Long Island, at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum, with a capacity of 16,234.
Then again, the Islanders have averaged only 10,774 fans per game over the last three seasons, according to the market study attached to the POS. And those Islanders, which have been losing a lot of money, would be the obvious candidate to move to Brooklyn.
There's more market analysis and detail in the full article.
NoLandGrab: If the issuers of arena bonds are trying to make them more attractive to prospective buyers, why aren't the developer and issuers explaining specifically how this would work? Could it be more smoke and mirrors?
Posted by lumi at 5:11 AM
December 9, 2009
Pro hockey at the Atlantic Yards arena? It looks doubtful
Atlantic Yards Report
In a long post on his Noticing New York blog, Michael D. D. White makes a strong case that the Ellerbe Becket arena design could not accommodate professional hockey and that any intimation in the bond offering that the Atlantic Yards arena could host the New York Islanders is a feint.
"Feint" is a more pleasant euphemism for "lie" or "fraud" or "Tiger Woods."
Note that White is working with an arena schematic from several months ago, so it's possible the design has been revised. But the onus is on developer Forest City Ratner and the public parties to come clean.
NoLandGrab: Norman Oder himself wrote just last Friday that "the basic orientation and design of the arena was not changed; the main change concerned the skin."
If these arena bonds are such a great investment, why won't Goldman Sachs just be honest about them?
Posted by eric at 9:52 AM
December 8, 2009
The Barclays naming right deal may not be a record, after all; will the revised agreement get noticed by the Times, which puffed it?
Atlantic Yards Report
The most important issue regarding naming rights for the Atlantic Yards arena is why the state simply gave them away--because they were part of arena financing, an Empire State Development Corporation official said not-so-convincingly last July.
That deserves coverage. But also deserving of coverage. especially in the New York Times, is the revelation that the Barclays Center deal, once touted as record-setting, may not be a record, after all. Or, if it remains a record, it's by a fraction.
...Now, however, we know the revised deal is $10 million a year for the arena plus other unspecified payments to the Nets. The total that is hardly double the deal in Atlanta and, given adjustment for inflation, may not even be any larger.
...The New York Times and the New York Daily News, however, haven't reported on the revised deal, though they--especially the Times--has treated the previous deal as fact multiple times. Given the parent New York Times Company's business relationship with Forest City Ratner, some more skeptical coverage is in order.
Posted by eric at 8:18 AM
December 7, 2009
The Craftily Negative Promise Offered For Bonds Being Sold For Nets Arena: It’s Not “Assumed” Islanders Hockey Team Is Coming to Basketball Arena
Noticing New York
Michael D.D. White puts on ice any fantasies of the Islanders some day playing in the Barclays Center.
In a marketing analysis commissioned by Forest City Ratner that has been made part of the Barclays Center Arena Preliminary Official Statement prepared by Goldman Sachs to market bonds for Forest City Ratner’s Nets arena bonds it says:
For purposes of this analysis, it has not been assumed that the New York Islanders would relocate to the Barclays Center.
This we-mentioned-but-we-can't-promise language is official statement language intended to keep people off the hook legally, but it does serve to introduce a definite (positive) possibility that, “Gee, just maybe, the Islanders will relocate to the Barclay’s Center.”
...Would a hockey rink fit? We think schematics posted by Atlantic Yards Report today probably answer that question in the negative. Evaluate the information and images we have to offer on this score. When you’re done you may also conclude that statements put into Goldman’s Preliminary Official Statement to help market the bonds are a joke (as well as misleading).
First, let's compare. How big is a basketball court in yards? An NBA basketball court is 94 feet x 50 feet. (31.33 yards x 16.67 yards) How big is a hockey rink? More than twice as long and 70% wider. The official size of a hockey rink is 200 ft long and 85 ft wide.
Posted by eric at 10:42 PM
Comparing the Gehry arena outline/orientation with its successor, thanks to an Ellerbe Becket interior design
Atlantic Yards Report
So, how has the planned Atlantic Yards arena changed?
No rendering of the interior of Frank Gehry's Atlantic Yards arena design was ever released, to my knowledge, but we did get a schematic of the arena block, via the Design Guidelines attached to the 2006 Modified General Project Plan. (Click on graphics to enlarge.)
Nor has a rendering of the interior of the new Ellerbe Becket design (now with a facade by SHoP) been officially released, but I did get one, thanks to a Freedom of Information Law request to the New York City Department of City Planning.
...
Posted by eric at 5:20 AM
Did Planning Commissioner Burden leak the "hangar" rendering? FOIL request stymied
Atlantic Yards Report
So, was it really Amanda Burden, chairperson of the New York City Planning Commission, who leaked images of the Ellerbe Becket arena design (aka "hangar") of the Brooklyn arena to the New York Times?
The leak led to a scathing review by architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff and the subsequent hiring of trendy architecture firm SHoP to put a facade on the same building, generating two cheers from Ourossoff.
In June, Crain's blamed Burden, citing anonymous sources. But my Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request to the Department of City Planning (DCP) couldn't confirm it.
...From the DCP letter to me (click on graphic to enlarge):
Responsive records which are being withheld... consist of intra-agency emails reflecting staff opinions or deliberations.
Posted by eric at 5:10 AM
December 5, 2009
Nets arena go-ahead gets more good news
Courier-Life
By Steven Witt
Here's reporting that displays more of the Courier-Life's fawning coverage of all things Bruce Ratner.
It’s all systems go for the Brooklyn Nets arena, and perhaps an NBA championship banner hanging from the rafters following the 2011-12 playoffs in the borough.
The idea did not seem that far-fetched to current Nets owner Bruce Ratner after both Moody’s Investor Service and Standard & Poor’s gave investor grade ratings for the proposed issuance of $500 million in tax-free bonds.
The ratings, which were just above a junk bond rating, should help pave the way in financing the $1.06 billion Barclays Center arena at the Flatbush/Atlantic avenues intersection.
This following unquestioned information fails to indicate that an arena could not open before 2012 and also indicates there is now a new definition of the phrase "good team".
While the Nets have started off winless in their first 17 games at press time and are on the verge of breaking an NBA record for losses starting a season, Ratner said it’s all part of a plan to bring a championship contender team to the borough by the end of the 2011-12 season.
“This was really just a year we were rebuilding. We’ve had a lot of injuries. I think long term we have a very good team,” said Ratner.
Posted by steve at 8:39 AM
December 4, 2009
Brooklynites says Nets in Brooklyn must win; guess who are the two most positive
Atlantic Yards Report
The New York Daily News today, in an article headlined Brooklyn basketball fans warn New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner not to bring losing team to borough, queries a not-so-random selection of basketball fans, several of whom say they don't want a losing Nets team coming to Brooklyn.
But a team rep is positive, as are a couple of fans:
Other would-be Brooklyn Nets fans were disappointed by the record-breaking loss but held out hope the fortunes of the team will turn around.
Kelly Burwell, 40, of Crown Heights, said the losing streak was "heartbreaking," but added, "It's all going to change ...Everyone will want to play for the Brooklyn Nets."
That's what the Nets are banking on, too. "We're going to have an exciting and winning team in Brooklyn," said spokesman Barry Baum, adding the team would look to pick up key free agents over the summer and benefit from several first-round draft picks in the next few years.
"We'll probably get LeBron James, we'll probably get all the good players," said Greg (Jocko) Jackson, a former Knick and now director of the Brownsville Recreation Center.
"When (the team) gets to Brooklyn it's going to be 18 and 0."
Neither of those two seeming civilians are new to the Atlantic Yards dispute.
Burwell was quoted in an October 2006 New York Times article as one of those welcoming the team. And Jackson was quoted in a May 2006 Daily News ITeam blog as one of those receiving program support from the Nets.
Related...
NY Daily News, Brooklyn basketball fans warn New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner not to bring losing team to borough
Posted by eric at 9:55 AM
December 3, 2009
It’s half-off at Brooklyn arena, but Islanders 'could' join Nets
The Brooklyn Blog [NYPost.com]
Barclays Bank could be getting two horrendous teams for half off what it originally agreed to pay for naming rights to the planned Brooklyn arena.
New arena financing documents released yesterday leave the door open to the NHL’s Islanders joining the NBA’s Nets at the planned Barclays Center in Prospect Heights, and they also indicate that a once-record $400 million naming-rights deal the British bank agreed to pay over 20 years has been chopped to $200 million.
Barclays would now pay $10 million a year to the arena’s owner over the 20-year deal as part of a renegotiated agreement, according to a 772-page statement prepared by Goldman Sachs for the $900 million arena project sent out to potential investors.
...A source close to the deal said it is a far cry from the $20 million a year over 20 years that Barclays was once set to pay.
The Nets will "definitely be getting much closer to $10 million a year than $20 million,” the source said.
...The Goldman Sachs document says the Nets – who set an NBA futility record Wednesday by starting a season 0-18 -- are expected to be in the new arena by the middle of 2012, and for the first time indicates the Islanders could be leaving Long Island to join them.
“The New York Islanders could potentially become a tenant” at the Barclays Center, the document says.
But there’s one problem: When Ratner spiked Gehry’s original arena plan for a cheaper design, the size of the arena’s playing area was a casualty, and, as planned, it’s no longer wide enough to host pro hockey games.
NoLandGrab: Sure, the "Islanders could potentially become a tenant" if they quit playing hockey for a sport that would actually fit in the arena, like roller derby or a dog show. Is there anything they won't claim in trying to buck up Ratner's high-risk arena bonds?
Posted by eric at 11:55 PM
The mysteries of the $131 million in New York City equity and the number of arena events
Atlantic Yards Report
As I wrote yesterday, the bond ratings agency Moody's counts $131 million from New York City as an substantial equity component, but that doesn't make sense.
If Moody's is counting city funding for land and infrastructure--and considering the "project" the arena plus infrastructure--it should also count at least some portion of the state's $100 million for infrastructure.
That $131 million figure, nor any other component of equity, is not mentioned in the other ratings agency report on the project, from Standard & Poor's.
Arena events
According to the Standard & Poor's report:
Of the 220 expected annual events at the arena, 41 will be basketball (excluding playoffs) and the remainder will be concerts, family shows, etc. We believe this expectation to be aggressive.
Indeed, they should. After all, the arena sponsors most recently predicted "over 200" events, and the one-time prediction of 225 events a year depended on no competing arenas in either the Meadowlands or Newark.
NoLandGrab: And, unfortunately, there are competing arenas in the Meadowlands and Newark. Is there going to be some magical spike in demand for Sesame Street Live and $300 concert tickets? Not likely, which is just one more reason that the projected revenue stream supporting the arena bonds are as shaky as Jello. Caveat emptor.
Posted by eric at 2:53 PM
If all goes well, the Nets might play in Brooklyn for the last games in 2012
Atlantic Yards Report
A tidbit in the Standard & Poor's report rating tax-exempt bonds for the planned Brooklyn arena: "construction is expected to be completed by April 1, 2012."
If the Nets aim to play ball, as Bruce Ratner asserts, "in the 2011-2012 NBA Season," that would mean--extrapolating from the current schedule--that the team would play its last three home games in Brooklyn.
Don't count on it. (The Times reported June 2012.)
Posted by eric at 2:50 PM
December 2, 2009
Ratner's Yards Bonds Rated 'Barely' Investment Grade
Brownstoner
On the heels of last week's eminent domain ruling, Forest City Ratner took another step towards realizing its vision for a basketball arena in Brooklyn when Moody's Investor Service gave the $500 million in tax free bonds being used to finance the Barclays Center a crucial investment-grade rating. According to a largely positive story in Crain's yesterday afternoon, "the “Baa3” rating reflects several factors, including the strength of New York City as a media market, existing sponsorship support for the team, the large amount of equity the developer and its partner are putting in the project and strong reserve funds." And check out this quote in The Times from a vice president at Moody's: “The lawsuits are not an issue as far as the rating is concerned. The rating assumes that the lawsuits will be settled and that the project will move forward." A more skeptical article in the New York Observer noted that while technically investement-grade, the bond rating was only one step above junk level, reflecting significant risk factors like relocation, weak team finances and "uncertain demand for premium seating."
Posted by eric at 2:24 PM
Ex-Net Jason Kidd 'fesses up: AY is "about a real estate play" (not "doing the right thing")
Atlantic Yards Report
Nets point guard Jason Kidd, at an 8/23/06 press
conferenceevent before the Empire State Development Corporation's public hearing on the Atlantic Yards Draft Environmental Impact Statement:"Getting to know Brooklyn and getting to know the community has proven to me that [Nets principal owner] Bruce [Ratner] is doing the right thing."
Kidd, now with the Dallas Mavericks, had a different message for today's New York Daily News:
"It's just one after another. It (the Nets' downfall) was something that was going to eventually happen. It reminded me of when I was with Dallas the first time (in the early '90s) and (H. Ross Perot Jr.) bought the team and it wasn't about basketball. It was about a real estate play. That is what happened with the Nets."
Posted by eric at 10:34 AM
Atlantic Yards report: Arena financing doesn't all add up
The slippery, risky Atlantic Yards bond deal
Did you notice that the Atlantic Yards financing deal keeps changing and has some very unclear numbers?
No infrastructure bonds
In September, the Brooklyn Arena Local Development Corporation (BALDC) agreed that it was willing to authorize up to $400 million in tax-exempt bonds for Atlantic Yards infrastructure. Now that plan is off the table.
PILOT bonds lowered in a week
Last week, the BALDC contemplated issuing up to $825 million in tax-exempt and taxable bonds for the arena. Yesterday, the amount of tax-exempt bonds had declined from $600-$650 million to just $500 million, in order to reassure investors.
Risky tactics denied but not ruled out
Officials of the BALDC say they won't do the following things, but won't definitively rule them out:
- issue additional bonds
- bail out investors who lose on arena bonds
- issue tax-exempt bonds for infrastructure
And that ain't all of it.
An updated article in the Bond Buyer, headlined Atlantic Yards Debt Gets Rated, quotes a ratings agency analyst explaining why the PILOT bonds for the planned Barclays Center got an investment grade.
But the number of arena events is inflated:
Out of the 225 days a year the arena is expected to hold events, only 40 to 45 of those will be Nets games, [Moody’s analyst Richard Donner] said.
“While the Nets are important as an anchor tenant, the arena is reliant upon other revenues,” Donner said. “We view that as a positive.”
However, a 9/16/09 Barclays Center press release stated, "Overall, the arena will host over 200 events annually."
And, as we've known for years, the original projection of 225 events a year depended on the closing of the Meadowlands Arena (now the Izod Center) and no construction of an arena in Newark.
But there's an arena in Newark.
So, does Moody's know what it's doing?
Funny, but Moody's won't say...
Ratings agency Moody's, asked why it assumes 225 events a year at the AY arena, won't discuss it
Given that a Moody's analyst told the Bond Buyer that its just-above-junk rating for $500 million in Barclays Center PILOT bonds depended in part on 225 events a year, I thought it was worth following up.
Noting that the arena sponsors most recently predicted 200 events a year (an 11% difference), I asked if Moody's was confident of the stated total of 225 events and, if there were 200 events, how might that change the rating.
Moody's spokesman John Cline responded, "I'm going to have to direct you back to the release. That is our comment."
The ratings agency release said nothing about the number of events; that was elicited in an interview.
My take: Moody's made a mistake.
NoLandGrab: Did these guys learn anything from events last year that damned near brought down the world's economy? Apparently not.
Posted by eric at 10:22 AM
Tax-exempt bonds rated just above junk, down to $500 million; arena cost confirmed at more than $1 billion
Atlantic Yards Report
In another crucial advance for the Brooklyn arena, the tax-exempt bonds for the planned Barclays Center--the cost of which is now estimated at $1.06 billion--have been rated investment-grade, though just above junk.
It should be enough to get the bonds sold to major institutional investors, though, as the Bond Buyer notes, bond insurance--which reassures investors but makes it more expensive for those paying back the bonds--remains in question. (The Times notes that bonds for the new Yankees and Mets stadiums got the same grade.)
Also, the amount has been reduced from $600-$650 million to $500 million, plus another $146 million in riskier "subordinated bonds," according to a report issued by Moody's Investors Service. (Those bonds are "likely to be sold to one of the project company's sponsors," reports Project Finance magazine, which says the split is indicative of the difficulty in getting an investment-grade rating.)
The Moody's report concerned the proposed issuance of $500 million of PILOT [payments in lieu of taxes] Revenue Bonds, Series 2009 (Barclays Center Project) by the Brooklyn Arena Local Development Corporation. The bonds must be sold by the end of the year to qualify for a tax exemption, which would save the developer well over $100 million.
...Bond primer
Moody's primer: Baa Obligations rated Baa are subject to moderate credit risk. They are considered medium-grade and as such may possess certain speculative characteristics...the modifier 3 indicates a ranking in the lower end of that generic rating category.
A key giveaway and a key to the rating
One thing clear from the report: if the state hadn't given away naming rights to developer Forest City Ratner, the arena would not be built.
Also, key to the credit rating is an on-time construction schedule--not the safest bet, given the history of Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 10:02 AM
November 30, 2009
Mayor vows NYC will go ahead with public works
Staten Island Advance
Mayor Bloomberg reaffirmed today that New York City would move ahead with a over $5 billion in key public works projects despite the recession.
Here is the text of his remarks as prepared for delivery on 1010 WINS News Radio:
..."And last week, New York state's highest court moved us closer to realizing a major piece of that future, with its 6-1 decision concerning Brooklyn's proposed Atlantic Yards development. The court's ruling was a long step forward for a project that will spur intensive investment in new offices, stores, and thousands of units of new housing. It will also produce a new Brooklyn home arena for the Nets professional basketball team. All told, Atlantic Yards is expected to create some 8,000 new permanent jobs in Brooklyn. More immediately, building it is also going to produce nearly 17,000 of the new union construction jobs that New Yorkers need."
NoLandGrab: "8,000 new permanent jobs?" That's a lie overestimate by several orders of magnitude. Even as originally planned, the project would create roughly 2,500 new jobs, if the office tower once dubbed "Miss Brooklyn" were erected. But even Bruce Ratner admits demand for Atlantic Yards office space is non-existent.
We've said it before, and we'll say it again: if Atlantic Yards is so terrific, why not just be honest about it?
Posted by eric at 11:37 AM
November 26, 2009
Nets CEO Yormark optimistic about the bond sale, says team will recover from losing streak
Atlantic Yards Report
New Jersey Nets CEO Brett Yormark appeared yesterday on WFAN's Boomer & Carton to talk about the team and Court of Appeals' dismissal of the Atlantic Yards lawsuit.
"It was a big moment for all of us, especially Bruce Ratner," Yormark said, saluting his boss. "He's been fighting so many battles over the last couple of years and, yesterday gave him a chance to feel good about what he's done over the past couple of years."
I guess that's one way of looking at it.
"We feel really good about the financing for the arena," Yormark added. "I think you'll hear some very positive news in the next couple of days from the rating agencies."
Posted by lumi at 8:03 AM
November 25, 2009
Ratner says team will move mid-season, but Times says June 2012
Atlantic Yards Report
Developer Bruce Ratner said yesterday in a statement that "the intent [is] that the Nets will play ball in the Barclays Center in the 2011-2012 NBA Season."
The New York Times reported today:
The developer expects that it will take about 28 months to build the arena, enabling the Nets to move from East Rutherford, N.J., to Brooklyn around June 2012.
The season's over by then.
NoLandGrab: Norman Oder is discounting the possibility that the (0-14) Nets could, with Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and George Mikan, be headed to the NBA Finals in June of 2012.
Posted by eric at 1:04 PM
November 23, 2009
Bloomberg architecture critic Russell: "Ratner won’t keep any promises that prove inconvenient"
Atlantic Yards Report
Yet another architecture critic has slammed the new design for the Atlantic Yards arena and offered some (misplaced) nostalgia for the forsaken Frank Gehry plan.
Still, James S. Russell, the critic for Bloomberg, grasps a fundamental issue that has eluded too many observers: "[Developer Bruce] Ratner won’t keep any promises that prove inconvenient."
Posted by eric at 9:31 AM
November 12, 2009
Arena bonds down to the wire? ESDC likely waiting until mid-December
Atlantic Yards Report
It looks like the sale of tax-exempt bonds for the Atlantic Yards arena would occur, at the earliest, in mid-December, two months after the date once predicted by developer Bruce Ratner.
A press release (bottom) from the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) today announced a meeting November 16 of the ESDC's Bond Finance Committee.
Was that regarding Atlantic Yards arena bonds? (Seemingly the latter would involve the Brooklyn Arena Local Development Corporation, or BALDC).
No, said ESDC spokeswoman Elizabeth Mitchell. (The ESDC is issuing other bonds.)
Coming in December?
So, when might arena bonds be on the agenda? "We expect by mid-December," Mitchell responded.
That suggests that the ESDC--perhaps nudged by bond rating agencies?--doesn't want to issue arena bonds until and unless the state Court of Appeals rules in favor of the ESDC's use of eminent domain.
A decision is expected in the next weeks.
But a December date already represents a two-month delay for Ratner, who told the 10/1/09 New York Observer that, after bond ratings were determined in "about two weeks... then we'll start selling them."
NoLandGrab: Ratner, who once claimed his Nets basketball club would be playing in Brooklyn by 2006, has been wrong before.
Posted by eric at 10:13 PM
November 10, 2009
Barclays Center promoters invoke borough authenticity ("Brownstone Suites") to "soften" entrance into Brooklyn
Atlantic Yards Report
Suite sales of the non-existent arena have been soft, so the marketing effort is being relaunched, with suites meant to evoke the history of Brooklyn:
The Barclays Center Showroom has been re-launched to sell suites and "to further celebrate Brooklyn and the heritage of the NETS basketball team." Among the features: "new floor-to-ceiling graphics evoking Brooklyn and its rich culture, history, and recent resurgence" plus "a historical timeline of sports and entertainment milestones in Brooklyn."
NoLandGrab: Expect the cultural and historical richness of a local TD Bank (formerly Commerce Bank) lobby.
And, of course, the Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment logo uses script that invokes the Brooklyn Dodgers.
...
What's up? Why are there Brownstone Suites and Loft Suites? Well, the Brooklyn strategy pursued by arena supporters sounds not unlike that practiced by others launching new retail and entertainment businesses like the bar Brooklyn Social, maintaining names, signage, or details from the past."New residents are using this idea of authenticity to soften their entrance into Brooklyn," s