US News

Atlantic Yards designs unveiled

Developer Bruce Ratner today unveiled his latest vision for a controversial plan to build an NBA arena in Brooklyn – a new glass-and steel design he hopes will help the public forget the key loss of star architect Frank Gehry from the embattled project.

The new renderings are a collaboration between the Kansas City-based firm Ellerbe Becket and Manhattan-based SHoP Architects.

Ratner brought in SHoP to assist Ellerbe Becket, which was hired earlier this year to replace Gehry and design a thriftier version of the planned Barclays Center.

Click here to see new images of the Atlantic Yards designs.

Ratner hopes to break ground by the end of the year and move his New Jersey Nets into the planned arena for the 2011-12 season.

The building consists of three separate but woven bands. A main concourse is placed right at street level, allowing a direct view to and from Flatbush and Atlantic avenues. Large areas of glass at street level make it not only pedestrian-friendly, but also encourage a strong visual connection to the surrounding urban neighborhood, the developer says.

“The Barclays Center will quickly become an iconic part of the Brooklyn landscape,” said Mr. Ratner. “The design is elegant and intimate and also a bold architectural statement that will nicely complement the surrounding buildings and neighborhoods.”

Ratner brought in ShoP, which has a hot reputation, to liven up the new arena design.

Unlike Ellerbe Becket — which designed 15 new arenas for the NBA and NHL in the past two decades – ShoP has no experience designing arenas or stadiums.

But the hot Manhattan firm – best known for its redesign of the South Street Seaport that has so far failed to win city approval – has a long list of other high-profile projects that include the expansion of the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Unofficial arena renderings done solely by Ellerbe Becket were leaked to reporters in June and ripped by critics for resembling an airplane hanger or a big barn.

Opponents have also accused Ratner of trying to pull a bait-and-switch on the public by firing Gehry, whose magnificent glass-and steel arena design was approved by state officials in Dec. 2006. Gehry was let go to shave arena costs from $950 million to $772 million.

The arena is the centerpiece of the developer’s $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project for Prospect Heights that also includes 16 office and residential towers. It has been stalled by litigation and the national credit crunch.

“The arena design is irrelevant,” said Daniel Goldstein of the opposition group Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn. “Designs continue to come and go, but they change nothing. It’s all lipstick on a corrupt pig, window-dressing on a boondoggle.”

The new renderings were released as the Empire State Development Corp. is set to soon rubber stamp a final approval for Atlantic Yards’ revised project plan, which was released in June without new renderings or models being shown to the public. The agency will host a public session on the new design at Brooklyn Borough Hall on Sept. 14.

Ratner is in a race against the clock to salvage a scaled-down version of a project he first proposed in Dec. 2003. He has to break ground on the arena by the end of the year to secure $650 million in tax-free financing for the arena; otherwise the cost could rise by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Meanwhile, the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, in October plans to hear a legal challenge by Goldstein’s group over the use of eminent domain to seize private land for the Atlantic Yards project. While the developer has won lower court rulings in the case, a victory by opponents here could doom the project.

It is unclear who will be designing the 16 residential-office towers that would make up the rest of Atlantic Yards. Ratner anticipates the entire project being completed by 2019, but his revised project plan with the ESDC includes loopholes allowing for further delays.