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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.
The arena, part of developer Bruce Ratner’s embattled Atlantic Yards project, will hold 18,000 seats for Nets games — including 9,500 on the lower level — and up to 19,000 for concerts. Although seat prices aren’t set, 11 of the arena’s 104 luxury suites run $540,000 a year — Nets part owner Jay-Z already bought one — and the rest cost an average of $264,550.
Designed by the team of Ellerbe Becket and SHoP Architects, the sleek glass-and-steel, clamshell-like arena is about 200,000 square feet smaller than the original design by starchitect Frank Gehry, who was fired last year to cut costs.
Alex Diaz, the arena’s general manager, said the new 675,000-square-foot design offers “site lines closer to the court and a more intimate fan experience.”
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.”
Diaz, however, disagreed about their being many obstructed views, saying 8,100 – or 85 percent — of the 9,500 lower level seats face the sidelines or four corners of the court, and not the baseline or back of the basket.
To boost home-field advantage, the arena will also feature specially designed and positioned sound-reflective materials to redirect crowd sound back to the court. At other sections of the arena, sound-absorbing materials are designed to enhance the sound quality for concerts.
The arena will also feature a restaurant and six clubs, including the Legends Lounge, located on the main concourse, with direct views to the court for basketball and the stage for concerts.
Ratner, who received state approval for the now $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards plan in Dec. 2006, saw his project held up and nearly killed by mounting lawsuits and a dwindling economy.
While the ceremonial groundbreaking is set for the arena Thursday, the timetable for the project’s 16 skyscrapers of residential and commercial space remains unclear because of the national credit crunch.
Gov. Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg are expected to join Ratner at the groundbreaking.