SPACIOUS LIVING: An artist’s rendering shows Brooklyn’s new Barclays Center’s spacious atrium, located at the main entrance (above). The common area (below) will be used by owners of the 10 not-so-common event-level suites — each costing $550,000 per year. (
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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.
Team officials yesterday unveiled renderings of interior spaces for the $1 billion Barclays Center in Prospect Heights — and the sights are dramatic.
“This building is designed to be inviting to everyone, whether they have premium seats or not,” Nets CEO Brett Yormark said.
PHOTOS: INSIDE BARCLAYS CENTER
Basketball fans will be welcomed at the main entrance by a grand atrium, which intersects with a team merchandise store, sweeping main concourse, a practice-court-viewing window and box office.
Other highlights include the Legends Lounge, a two-sided bar on the main concourse with a platform offering views into the bowl area.
Nearby is the Beers of the World bar, tastefully framed with reclaimed wood and accented with a handcrafted feature wall made of beer bottle caps.
For high rollers, there’s the Courtside Club, which offers premium-seat holders views of players and entertainers walking to and from the court area.
Designed by SHoP Architects, officials said the 18,000-seat arena will have attractions for all. This includes fans sitting in the $15 cheap seats or one the 100 luxury suites, which run as high as $550,000.
Christopher Sharples, a co-founder of SHoP, said the design provides a real Brooklyn feel, from its heavy use of brown and gray coloring to its lighting.
“We didn’t want to overload the arena by making it too glitzy like Times Square,” Sharples said.
The arena also promises to have among the country’s best site lines for a sports venue, because Barclays Center was designed specifically for basketball.
The Garden is trying to keep pace. It’ll close this summer and the next two for an $850 million inside-out renovation aimed at providing better views and amenities.
The Nets’ arena project is still a far cry from the rising public atrium, or “Urban Room,” that fronted a glass-walled arena in star architect Frank Gehry’s original design for developer Bruce Ratner’s $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project.
Ratner fired Gehry in 2009 to cut arena-construction costs. Though the arena is more than half built, the developer has yet to secure financing to build any of the project’s 16 residential and office towers.