Ratner, Gehry Unveil Designs For $3.5B Nets Arena Project

Latest Renderings Of Ratner’s $3.5B Arena Project

New designs by Nets Owner Bruce Ratner and architect Frank Gehry show that the plan for a new Nets arena complex in Brooklyn “will include a ridge of a half-dozen skyscrapers as high as 60 stories, ... along with four towers circling the basketball arena,” according to Diane Cardwell of the N.Y. TIMES. While the $3.5B project will include about 6,000 housing units, up from the 4,500 estimated in ’03, the “real impact would be in the size and density of the buildings, which are taller and bulkier than once envisioned.” The development would “create 1.9 million square feet of office space and housing for roughly 15,000 people,” while an alternate plan would “cut the office space to roughly 429,000 square feet, and add 150 to 200 hotel rooms and 1,300 additional apartments.” Gehry said that the design “aims to create the look of a contemporary city that grew up naturally over time.” Gehry: “We’re trying to design it as a good neighbor, which is hard to do when the buildings you’re building are bigger than the ones around you.” Forest City Ratner Exec VP James Stuckey said that the arena is scheduled to open in ’08, with “the entire project completed as soon as 2011” (N.Y. TIMES, 7/5).

MOVE OVER, MANHATTAN: In N.Y., architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff wrote the arena complex could be “the most important urban development plan proposed in [N.Y.] in decades. If it is approved, it will radically alter the Brooklyn skyline, reaffirming the borough’s emergence as a legitimate cultural rival to Manhattan.” Ouroussoff: “It is a stark contrast to the proposed development of the West Side of Manhattan, where the abandoned Jets stadium was only the most visible aspect of what seemed doomed to become another urban wasteland” (N.Y. TIMES, 7/5).