Forget courtside! The hottest ticket at the revamped Madison Square Garden will be straight above Spike Lee’s head.
Up to a thousand fans will get to sit in premium nosebleed seats on the two sky bridges that will be built five stories above the playing floor as part of the $850 million inside-out reconstruction of the “World’s Most Famous Arena.”
“This is our signature element. It will be a unique experience in sports and entertainment,” Hank Ratner, CEO of Madison Square Garden, told The Post.
Rather than merely renovate the Garden, the project, funded without a dime in taxpayer subsidies, calls for building an entirely new arena in the shell of the 1968 building, he said.
“This gives us the best of both worlds. We keep what’s iconic — the exterior and the famous ceiling — and create a whole new building,” Ratner said.
Construction will start in earnest on June 14 and go through several phases over the next four years, moving from the bottom up. The work, which will not disrupt the Knicks or Rangers seasons, will occur mostly in summer.
After conducting focus groups with fans, MSG officials found that the biggest complaints were over the arena’s lobby, its narrow concourses, the limited food choices, the lack of bathrooms, and the poor sightlines at the higher levels, Ratner said.
“We gave the whole list to our architects,” he said.
One longtime complaint about the Garden is that the building gives no sense of its location in the heart of Manhattan.
By moving out most of the office space, the revamp will turn the somewhat claustrophobic lower concourse into a wide thoroughfare with city views, shopping and high-end dining options.
This concourse will pay homage to the Garden’s history, with tributes to Knicks and Rangers championships to such landmark events as the Ali-Frazier fight.
Also, as part of the first phase, to be completed for the 2011-12 seasons, is the addition of 20 “event-level” suites. Located below courtside and featuring kitchens, bathrooms, fireplaces and dining rooms “nicer than most apartments in Manhattan,” the suites lead up to the best seats in the house.
The following year, the arena’s upper bowl will be redone.
The new seats will all be more plush, and the angle of the bowl’s incline will be increased 17 degrees to bring fans closer to the action.
This phase will include the addition of 58 “lower-level suites,” which would be larger and closer to the action than the ones in the current Garden.
The sky bridges and new lobby are set to be completed for the 2013-14 seasons, along with a party deck on the 10th floor and remodeled upper-level suites.
Pricing has not been set for the sky bridges, but the courtside suites reportedly sold for upward of $1 million.