Business

MSG belts Barclays with its own suite life

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Jay-Z, eat your heart out!

Just days after the rapper helped Brooklyn’s Barclays Center steal some of the city’s entertainment buzz with a gala opening, Madison Square Garden is moving to prove it is still the center of the sports and concert universe.

The World’s Most Famous Arena is ready to take the wraps off 58 new lower-bowl, open-air luxury suites — and executives are boasting the spaces, up to 620 square feet, top anything Barclays is offering.

“You have all the luxury here of an upscale Manhattan apartment while at the same time you’re sitting in the middle of Madison Square Garden,” Hank Ratner, president and CEO of The Garden told The Post during an exclusive tour.

“You can even go back to the kitchen area, sit down and eat — and not miss a second of action,” he added. “There’s nothing out there like this.”

Ratner is referring to the fact that in the new Madison Level Suites, the court or rink is visible from any point inside the suite.

That is not true in any other suite around the New York City area — even Barclays’ much-ballyhooed Jay-Z-designed Vault suites.

The new, closer-to-the-action Garden luxury suite — just 23 rows away from the court versus five stories away for the older suites — are part of the ongoing $1 billion top-to-bottom transformation project.

Ratner declined discussing prices, but industry sources said the “Madison Level Suites” have leased for up to $700,000 a year. That’s nearly twice the rate of the old suites and much more than what Barclays was able to charge.

The usual suspects — Gotham’s top banks, brokerages, media companies and law firms — have snapped up 54 of the 58 already.

The new suites will debut with Amar’e Stoudemire and the Knicks’ home opener on Nov. 2.

At up to 620 square feet, the suites are 40 percent larger than MSG’s existing suites — and, folks at MSG are quick to whisper, double the size of Barclays’ most posh suites.

Features of the new suites include large-screen HDTVs, living rooms stocked with luxurious leather seating, granite-counter-top kitchens, restrooms with porcelain-tiled flooring and a menu by master chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten.

Ratner said he believes MSG now offers the “best” suites in the world — especially, he said, when you factor in access to the arena’s roughly 300 events yearly, including top concerts.

“No one offers the product mix, the history we have dating back to 1879, the convenience of the location, and frankly no one offers the quality of the amenities being provided,” he said.

When asked how the suites compare with Barclays’ Vault suites, Ratner said he’ll “leave the comparison to others” — but quickly added, “I would put what we have here up against anything in the world.”

Officials at Barclays Center — which has sold 90 percent of its suites — declined to comment.

The Garden in November is also unveiling its new Madison Club, a 6,000-square-foot club also in the newly renovated lower bowl.

Members pay $42,500 a seat per year for access to all sporting events and unlimited food and nonalcoholic drinks.

The new sections are attracting what Ratner called “the Who’s Who of Corporate America.”

“People who come here can do business in the hallways, and that’s something we really do pride ourselves on,” he said.