Results tagged “arena”

On the heels of Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov's blog confirmation of rumors that he'll help finance the Bruce Ratner's embattled Nets stadium, Forest City Ratner has issued a statement detailing the "strategic partnership for the development of the Atlantic Yards Project." According to the press release, "entities to be formed by Prokhorov's Onexim Group will invest $200 million and make certain contingent funding commitments to acquire 45% of the arena project and 80% of the NBA team." The tentative $200 million deal would also involve Prokhorov taking on some of the team’s debts and reducing Ratner’s 23 percent stake.

Developer Bruce Ratner must be relieved this morning to see that big bad Nicholas Ouroussoff at Times does not revile the latest renderings for the Nets arena planned for Brooklyn. You'll recall that Ouroussoff dissed the last designs as "a monstrosity" and "a shameful betrayal of the public trust, one that should enrage all those who care about this city." But bringing young New York firm SHoP on board may be just the lipstick on the boondoggle Ratner needs; Ouroussoff, who had embraced Gehry's vision for the project, calls this new look "somewhat more promising."

       

After dropping architect Frank Gehry from his embattled Atlantic Yards project, developer Bruce Ratner replaced him with arena designer company Ellerbe Becket, whose revised brick shit-house renderings for a proposed Nets Arena were met with derision. So last week it was revealed that Ratner was doing damage control by bringing in hot New York architecture firm SHoP, and now this morning we have take three on the arena, which is still radically different from Gehry's signature crumpled paper design, but less banal than the last misfire.

A new rendering by the Municipal Art Society suggests that Bruce Ratner's $4.9 billion plan to build a Nets basketball arena and mixed-use towers in Brooklyn is a far cry from what was originally proposed, duh. No official renderings of the 22-acre site have been provided to the public since Ratner revealed that starchitect Frank Gehry's ambitious arena designs had been scrapped to cut costs, so MAS has stepped in to show what the area will look like in the coming years.

With four major sports complexes crowding a 30 mile radius, and another on the way to Brooklyn as part of the embattled Atlantic Yards project, owners are now facing the sobering prospect of one day fighting to fill nearly 100,000 seats, 365 days a year. Mark Rosentraub, a professor of sports management at the University of Michigan, tells the Times, "The market is saturated... Five arenas is not going to work. I don’t think four works, even in a market as large as New York. There’s competition in every direction and there aren’t enough events." Of course, there's been heated debate for years over whether these government-subsidized stadiums—often sold as snake oil panaceas to foundering regional economies—actually contribute much to the community. (Here's one great article on the subject.) Now arenas are hemorrhaging money across the country, the Times reports. But this is New York, and there's always room for one more! Developer Bruce Ratner, demonstrating a vampiric ability not to die from a thousand cuts, scored some major victories last week, and is rushing to break ground on his Brooklyn monstrosity before the end of the year.

As expected, the MTA board voted yesterday to approve a less lucrative deal to sell the Vanderbilt Railyards in Prospect Heights to developer Bruce Ratner, who won a bid to buy the property for $100 million (which is less than the land's $200+ million appraised value) in 2005. The MTA will now accept just $20 million up front and the rest in installments over the next two decades. However, a last-minute counter-offer made by Atlantic Yards opponent Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, for $120 million to be paid over the next 12 years, was ignored by the MTA.

It's another pivotal week for developer Bruce Ratner's embattled Atlantic Yards project, which recently received a major redesign that forsook Frank Gehry's glitzy arena designs for a big brick shithouse (pictured). At a public meeting this morning, the MTA's finance committee reviewed "a revised agreement" with Ratner, who still needs to pony up for the MTA's Vanderbilt Rail Yard land in order to move forward with the project.

When we derided the bait-and-switch redesign of developer Bruce Ratner's Nets arena as "a banal homage to any number of unremarkable field house arenas across America," some readers accused us of snobbery. But isn't that the same anti-elitist attitude that gave America eight years with a simian president just because the knuckle draggers found him folksy? That's not to say Gehry's scrapped design was the Obama of arenas, but you can certainly imagine, say, Sarah Palin feeling right at home watching some arena football in this eyesore (above). And Nicolai Ouroussoff at the Times gets it:

After news broke yesterday that developer Bruce Ratner had officially replaced starchitect Frank Gehry's striking design for a big, $1 billion arena in downtown Brooklyn, the Times released a rendering of what the new arena would look like. And wow, eat your heart out, Indianapolis! To save $200 million, Ratner enlisted Kansas City design firm Ellerbe Becket to completely redesign the stalled arena, which he needs to begin building by the end of the year, when his right to use tax-exempt financing expires.

As embattled developer Bruce Ratner—who just won't let go of his $4.2 billion dream to build a Nets basketball arena, office towers and thousands of apartments in Prospect Heights— continues to stagger around like a zombie who refuses to believe he's dead, the project's celebrated architect Frank Gehry is becoming increasingly uninvolved.

Starchitect Frank Gehry really stepped in it during a recent interview with industry journal The Architect's Newspaper, admitting he doesn't think developer Bruce Ratner's $4.2 billion plan to build a Nets basketball arena, office towers and thousands of apartments in Brooklyn will become a reality. In an interview on the occasion of his 80th birthday, Gehry dropped the bombshell when asked about unrealized commissions he most wishes had been built: "The Corcoran Gallery in DC, the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn—I don’t think it’s going to happen."

Lawsuits from community and environmental groups, a tanking economy, and outcry over slavery money aren’t stopping Forest City Ratner from pushing forward with the $950 million Barclays Arena in Brooklyn, possible future home of the New Jersey Nets. Yesterday a luxury suite showroom opened in the New York Times building as an attempt to woo big-ticket investors and shift public opinion.

Recently obtained court documents suggest that developer Bruce Ratner is starting to sweat the future of the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project, which would bring the New Jersey Nets to downtown Brooklyn, along with 16 skyscrapers with residential and commercial space. Lawyers for Ratner’s firm were in court last Friday to try and accelerate the appeal process in a lawsuit brought by Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, who argues that the project was rushed to approval by the state in 2006 without a thorough environmental review.