Brooklyn Arena Design Sees Light of Day

NEW YORK CITY-Forest City Ratner Cos. and SHoP Architects on Tuesday unveiled a new design for the plaza that will serve as the primary entryway to the Barclays Center, the centerpiece arena of FCRC’s Atlantic Yards project. At a press briefing held in advance of a public review scheduled for Wednesday evening, FCRC chairman and CEO Bruce Ratner said plans for the first residential tower, which will include affordable housing, will be introduced next spring.

The 38,885-square-foot plaza at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues is comprised mainly of public space, with a transit entrance in the middle. A key feature will be the Barclays Center Oculus, a 117-foot-by-56-foot canopy that will feature a video screen that can be programmed for games and other events.

“We of course want the plaza to function well as a gateway to the Barclays Center” which will serve as the new home for the Nets NBA basketball franchise, Ratner says in a release. “But it was also designed much like a park so it can be programmed for community events and diverse activities, such as a greenmarket and holiday fairs.”

Published reports say Ratner told reporters Tuesday that the 336,000-square-foot office tower planned to soar over the arena would be on hold until market conditions improve, as would most of the Brooklyn mega-project’s planned residential towers. “If there’s no market for the kind of middle-income housing with the amenities and the numbers that we’re doing, then New York City is in serious trouble — but I really don’t think that’s going to happen,” the Brooklyn Paper quoted Ratner as saying.

However, a spokesman for FCRC disputes that account. At the news conference, the spokesman tells GlobeSt.com, Ratner provided an update on the arena’s progress, reiterated that the company will announce design of the $4-billion project’s first residential building next spring and affirmed that the plan is start a new residential tower every six to nine months after work begins on the first one. “He did say, as we’ve said many times before, that the schedule is also subject to market conditions,” the spokesman says.

SHoP says in the release that it incorporated best practices in public-space designs around the world into the plaza. The firm plans to incorporate sedum, a genus of flowering plants, to adorn the transit entrance’s roof as well as two-semi rings of planters that wrap around the entrance. “The use of greenery will also allow for a changing, seasonal look in terms of color and an element of natural warmth in an otherwise very urban setting,” SHoP founding partner Gregg Pasquarelli says in a release.

As for the 18,000-seat arena itself, foundation work is under way, and steel should begin rising next year, the spokesman says. FCRC expects to open the arena in time for the start of the Nets’ playing season in the fall of 2012.

The architects will also present the design for the plaza at a public review session Wednesday at a public meeting, scheduled to begin at 6 p.m., at Brooklyn Borough Hall.