Nets hard at work building toward Brooklyn move

NEW YORK (AP)—From high above a Brooklyn street, the view is of cranes and trucks maneuvering below, trains idling in the distance off to the left.

From that very spot, Mikhail Prokhorov will soon watch his basketball team play.

The New Jersey Nets are perhaps the busiest team in a league where work has stopped, the banging and clanging at the team’s construction site some of the only sounds being heard in the NBA’s mostly silent summer.

And the lockout won’t slow their momentum, because they’re selling Brooklyn as much as basketball.

“People waited a long time not only for this venue, but also for sports entertainment to return. What we’ve been selling for years is, Brooklyn is volume and variety, and that the building’s bigger than basketball,” Barclays Center chief executive officer Brett Yormark said. “It’s not just one thing, a combination of all of them, so our story hasn’t changed.”

The $1 billion arena is set for a September 2012 opening, and the Nets believe it will provide them with the type of home-court environment they never enjoyed in New Jersey, for long at the Meadowlands and now at their temporary home in the Prudential Center.

From the moment Bruce Ratner bought the team in 2004, he planned to get them out of there and to the borough where he first built a quarter century ago. Lawsuits and a recession delayed his plans until Prokhorov, a billionaire from Russia, bought the majority of the team and a share of the development project, paving the way for a dream that seemed stalled.

“This is a sports town,” said Ratner, who is chairman and CEO of Forest City Ratner Companies and developer of the arena while retaining a portion of the team. “This location, the subway location was extraordinary, and we felt that the name Brooklyn resonated throughout the world as its own brand.”

The Nets have tumbled toward the bottom of the NBA since their run to two straight NBA finals in 2002-03, finishing with one of the worst records in league history two seasons ago when they went 12-70. But just as things hit their lowest point on the court, their future started to pick up.

Work finally began in March 2010, though only on one side of the site while remaining tenants lasted another two months on the other, causing part of the arena to be clearly ahead of the other. It has remained on schedule since, despite the challenges of building in the tight space of what would be the nation’s fourth-largest city if it were one.

Two streets had to be closed and utilities had to be moved. Long Island Rail Road trains that used to rest where the arena will sit when not in use are now parked in the distance. As part of the project, a subway stop for nine lines will be expanded, allowing travelers to stay underground until arriving at the Barclays Center’s plaza entrance.

“Urban projects are particularly difficult, because as Bruce has pointed out earlier, you’re shoehorning them into asymmetrical kinds of conditions, often immediately adjacent to transit hubs,” said Bob Sanna, in charge of the Barclays Center construction.

“In this particular case we’re surrounded by subways, so when you excavate adjacent to a subway, or to a railroad or to any tunnel, it introduces a level of complexity. You can’t just go out there with a shovel and dig it. You have to plan how you’re going to support the dirt and those kinds of things.”

Ratner, an Ohio native who first worked for the city after coming to New York 44 years ago, said he was always “fascinated” by Brooklyn and used to pitch businesses to relocate or remain there.

“I used to sell Brooklyn in 1986 by saying downtown Brooklyn is the best downtown in America,” Ratner said. “And companies would look at me and I’d say here’s why: best transportation system, beautiful parks, has more college students than Cambridge, Mass; restaurants and diversity and brownstones, and people live in the downtown. I always thought it had tremendous opportunity for almost anything.”

And it will have a large presence in the arena, with the facade being set just this week allowing for open views of Atlantic Avenue. Pictures of the court in the Barclays Center brochure show “Brooklyn Nets” lining both baselines— even though they will eventually need league approval to adopt that as their name.

The Nets are eager to show off the arena’s progress, believing it can entice players now that they’re ready to spend again thanks to Prokhorov’s deep pockets. The delays in getting it built may have cost the Nets in their pursuit of Carmelo Anthony, who said players would always wonder about the Brooklyn move because they couldn’t see it—something Ratner understands.

“Having skepticism by anybody is understandable and it’s like when you build a house. Until it really gets framed up, you don’t really believe it’s happening,” he said. “Now that they see it, they are amazed at how large at is. I think seeing it is believing.”

Sales of premium seats have already started, and Yormark has been pleased with the number purchased by Brooklyn residents, proving there’s money there to spend in the lounges and restaurants. Basketball is an obvious focus—the arena’s scoreboard and a practice court below will be visible from the lobby entrance—but there will be concerts, the circus and boxing, with Yormark saying 163 dates have already been booked.

“Brooklyn certainly deserves the best of entertainment there is to offer,” he said.

Ratner remembers when Brooklyn had it, when the beloved Dodgers played at Ebbets Field and top musicians performed at the Paramount. He believes the Barclays Center will bring back what’s been missing.

“Sports and entertainment are such a part of our lives in this country. People who say, ‘Well, it’s just an arena,’ they’re really not right,” Ratner said. “It’s a physical structure. More than that, it’s a part of ourselves, it’s part of what entertainment is and everyone loves entertainment.”

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