9/9/09 will not only be known as Beatles day around the planet. Forest City Ratner has released their latest iteration of renderings for the Barclays Center, the prospective future home of the Brooklyn Nets. The designs are a collaboration of architectural firms Ellerbe Becket and SHoP Architects.
In a statement found on the Barclays Center web site Nets owner Bruce Ratner said:
“The Barclays Center will quickly become an iconic part of the Brooklyn landscape. The design is elegant and intimate and also a bold architectural statement that will nicely complement the surrounding buildings and neighborhoods. The Barclays Center will be innovative in its look and use of materials, including weathered steel and glass, and will be the best place in the world to watch a basketball game and other forms of sports and entertainment.”
Project oppoents Develop Don’t Design Brooklyn have already weighed in on the design. “It’s all lipstick on a corrupt pig, window-dressing on a boondoggle,” DDDB spokesman Daniel Goldstein said in a statement today. The statement also notes how the renderings only include the arena and not the rest of the proposed development.
Yesterday, Nets CEO Bret Yormark told Fox Business News he expects ownership will receive the financing it needs to start construction before the end of the year, with a move to Brooklyn likely for the 2011-12 season. There are still a ton of legal obstacles to overcome, most notably a hearing up in Albany on October 14 on the eminent domain issues connected to the project.
More renderings after the jump.
