The Barclays Center is a proposed sports arena to be built partly on a platform over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority-owned Atlantic Yards at Atlantic Avenue in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is part of a proposed $3.5 billion sports arena, business and residential complex. The site is intended to serve as a new home for the New Jersey Nets, currently based at Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The MTA site is 8.3 acres; the Atlantic Yards project site would be 22 acres.
The arena, along with the rest of the complex, is a project of Brooklyn developer Bruce Ratner, who acquired the Nets in 2004, with the purpose of moving them from New Jersey to this site near the Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street New York City Subway station and the Long Island Rail Road terminus in Brooklyn, one of the most transit-accessible locations in the city. The move would mark the return of major league sports to Brooklyn, which has been absent since the departure of the Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1957 (their proposal for a new stadium at the Atlantic Yards to replace the unprofitable Ebbets Field had been turned down by the city in the past). Ratner's group had hoped to have the arena open for the beginning of the 2010-2011 season, but the team announced on January 3, 2008 that the arena will not open until 2010 at the earliest. It has been discussed that the Barclays Center may be the NBA All-Star Game site in the 2013-2014 season.
Designed by architect Frank Gehry, the arena would host the Nets, along with concerts, conventions and other sporting events, competing with Madison Square Garden and the Prudential Center among other facilities. The arena's roof would feature a park open only to residents of the Atlantic Yards complex, ringed by an open-air running track that doubles as a skating rink in winter with panoramic vistas facing Manhattan year-round.
The arena will also be able to host hockey games with an NHL sized rink. Brooklyn is geographically the western end of Long Island, and many on other parts of the island have roots there, suggesting that the New York Islanders could play games there (perhaps permanently). The Nets and Islanders shared Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum from 1971 to 1977.
It has been reported that London-based Barclays Bank has agreed to pay the team $400 million over the next 20 years for the naming rights of their future Brooklyn home. On January 18, 2007 it was announced that the arena would be called Barclays Center, becoming the third major league sports venue to be called a center in the NYC metro area.
BROOKLYN IS BASKETBALL
That’s right, the NBA in Brooklyn, USA. Can you think of a more perfect fit?In the history of the hoops game, no city has influenced the style and rhythm of the sport more than Brooklyn. The fast paced, “in your face” action of today’s NBA was born right here
on the asphalt of Brooklyn’s playgrounds and now we can bring it back to the hard wood of a beautiful new arena located in downtown Brooklyn.
Our borough’s influence on the game goes way beyond the heart pounding style we have come to expect from NBA games. Brooklyn was, at one point or another, home to basketball greats
like Michael Jordan, Red Auerbach, Red Holzman, Connie Hawkins, Lenny Wilkens, Bernard King, Billy Cunningham, Ro Blackman, World B. Free and Stephon Marbury.
For those of you who don’t think Brooklyn is major league, think again! No city on earth has a history in sports as rich and storied as Brooklyn’s. As home to the legendary Brooklyn Dodgers from 1890-1957, Brooklyn acquired a reputation as a passionate sports
city. Wildly enthusiastic crowds came out to see the lovable Dodgers play at old Ebbets Field and in 2001, when baseball returned to the Borough in the form of the Single-A Brooklyn Cyclones, Brooklyn’s dedicated fan base picked up right where they had left off.
The Cyclones have led their league in attendance every season since their inaugural game, playing in front of a full house nearly every night in the intimate Keyspan Park on Coney Island. In 2003 alone, 317,124 fans pushed through the turnstiles for the Cyclones 38 home games, making the Cyclones the best draw in their New York-Penn League and proportionally, one of the most well attended teams in all of baseball.
Quick Facts about Brooklyn and the Nets:
If removed from greater New York City, Brooklyn’s population of 2.5 million would make up America's fourth largest city.
The Brooklyn Nets would play in a 20,000 seat, downtown arena designed by an icon of modern architecture, Frank Gehry.
A move to Brooklyn would be a homecoming of sorts for the Nets who came into existence in the old American Basketball Association as the New York Nets.
Brooklyn, NY, December 10, 2003
Frank Gehry, internationally
acclaimed architect, unveils vision for world-class basketball arena
and mixed-use complex for downtown Brooklyn
Development spearheaded by Forest City Ratner Companies will bring professional sports to Brooklyn along with new residential units, commercial and retail space and six acres of public space including an open-air, rooftop skating rink
Internationally acclaimed architect Frank Gehry and Bruce C. Ratner, President and CEO of Forest City Ratner Companies, today unveiled a master plan for the arena that will house the Nets basketball team that Mr. Ratner is seeking to bring to downtown Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Arena will be the centerpiece of a mixed-use development called Brooklyn Atlantic Yards. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and Brooklyn-born basketball All-Star
Bernard King hailed the exciting plan at a news conference in the Ceremonial Room of Brooklyn’s Borough Hall.
The 800,000 square-foot Brooklyn Arena will be the focal point of Brooklyn Atlantic Yards, an urban complex of housing, commercial and retail space, as well as six acres of landscaped
public open space – including a park on the Arena’s roof, ringed by an open-air running track that doubles as a skating rink in winter with panoramic vistas facing Manhattan year-round.
“Great urban planning incorporates many different uses into a cohesive neighborhood – and truly great urban planning invites the public to participate in the space, whether they work there or live there or they’re drawn there to visit,” said Bruce Ratner, who is leading a group of investors bidding to purchase the NBA franchise. “The Nets will be a huge draw for sports fans from throughout the borough and all of the New York metropolitan area,
and we intend to give them a first-class team to root for – in a Frank Gehry Arena as dynamic and remarkable as the borough it’s named after.”
“This is an important opportunity for everyone,” added Frank Gehry. “Our goals are to create a great Arena for a great team, and to create something really special for Brooklyn.”
“Downtown Brooklyn has experienced a remarkable revival over the last twenty years, and with one of the world’s greatest architects – Frank Gehry – working with Forest City Ratner Companies to develop this proposed master plan, the Brooklyn Arena and the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards development will be a truly monumental achievement,” said Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. “Gehry’s unique urban design fits into the streetscape and
provides new landmarks and public spaces to make this borough and our entire City proud. This project complements our Administration's vision for dramatically redeveloping Downtown Brooklyn that we announced earlier this year and is now going through the City's public land use review process. Our Administration is ready to put on a full court press for its approval - just as we're prepared to team up with Forest City Ratner Companies and with the elected officials
and people of this borough to bring the Nets to Brooklyn. We're rooting hard for their success.”
