It all started with a campaign promise.
When Borough President Marty Markowitz first ran for office in 2001, he made a stump pledge that seemed like a pipe dream — bring major league sports back to Brooklyn.
After he was elected in 2002 he called up then-Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley, whose father Walter infamously moved the team out of Brooklyn in 1957, and asked him to consider moving the club back “home.”
Markowitz got hung up on when he said: “Would there be any chance that you can redeem your family name and correct the mistake of 1957?”
He later heard that the New Jersey Nets might be put up for sale and immediately called developer Bruce Ratner to ask if he would be interested in buying the squad and bringing it to Brooklyn.
And he called. And called. And called.
“Marty kept on pestering me, so I had to [do] something,” Ratner said.
Though he was reluctant at first, Ratner looked into the possibility and embarked on a decade-long odyssey that included:
* Six lawsuits challenging the project, including four eminent-domain issues.
* Two different architects, starting with Frank Gehry and, when his design was too costly, ending with SHoP Architects.
* Two different primary owners for the team behind the project, the Nets.
* 800 people who needed to relocate.
* An arena price that was originally estimated to be $475 million in 2003, then jumped to $673 million in 2006 and was finally said to be $1 billion.
The Barclays Center really got rolling after Ratner bought the Nets in 2003 for $300 million, thus giving the arena a primary tenant.
When the developer got state approval in December 2006 for the Atlantic Yards project — which includes the arena — he originally hoped the venue could be done by 2009.
But the dream was soon mired in court battles, as Ratner tried to take over residential areas in the project’s 22-acre footprint.
In 2008, the recession hit, but the project got a big boost from an unlikely source — Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov.
The Moscow industrialist in September 2009 bought 80 percent of the Nets for $223 million plus agreed to absorb $60 million in Nets losses. He also bought 45 percent of the arena, saving the project, which was broke ground in March 2010.