Nets Arena By 2010? Not Bloody Likely
Over at Atlantic Yards Report, Norman Oder maintains that we should take the Nets’ pledge to move to Brooklyn in 2010 with a grain of salt: Arena construction takes 24 months and can’t begin until the pending lawsuits are cleared…Even if the legal challenges end soon, it still would take a scheduled three years to…
Over at Atlantic Yards Report, Norman Oder maintains that we should take the Nets’ pledge to move to Brooklyn in 2010 with a grain of salt:
Arena construction takes 24 months and can’t begin until the pending lawsuits are cleared…Even if the legal challenges end soon, it still would take a scheduled three years to reconstruct bridges on Carlton Avenue and Sixth Avenue, and it would be a very unwise move to open the arena with a major traffic bottleneck next to it. The Carlton Avenue bridge won’t close until January 16. Three years from then would be mid-January, 2011.
Given that the Nets originally intended to be playing in Brooklyn by 2006, Oder’s skepticism about the current target date doesn’t seem far-fetched.
On the Nets Arena, the Real Story is 2011, Not 2010 [AY Report]
Nets Say Brooklyn Move May Be Delayed Further [NY Times]
Rendering from barclayscenter.com.
For $2 billion of our taxpayer money, we deserve community involvement, a development that’s in proportion to the space, infrastructure and traffic capacity. We simply do not have that.
Literally no one is saying do not develop. All we are saying is develop while considering factors other than Ratner’s personal wealth.
Also, to laud the additional jobs is beside the point. We’re paying $2 billion for substantially less than $2 billion worth of economic development. We didn’t even give the Yards to the highest bidder. We sold them to Ratner for $50 mil while another developer offered $150.
It’s clear to most of us that our politicians are not operating in the interest of the people they represent.
My prediction is the recession (which officially arrived in the headlines today) is going to totally screw up the already wonky spreadsheet justifying the wider AY project and one way or another it is going to dissolve into a shadow of the original plans.
It is the height of hubris for any developer to assume that they can build a functioning, cohesive commericial/residential/multi-use development on this scale.
Brooklyn has no need for:
– disruptive development on this scale
– the 100s of minimum wage jobs tied to fickle franchises
– endless roadwork to alleviate predictable traffic congestion
– the bogus civic pride of a fickle NBA franchise
– the tax burden of all of the above
Brooklyn’s local economy is growing just fine without AY.
What does NIMBY mean? Sorry, ESL student here.
My prediction.
Stadium was always intended as a loss leader and will not make money. The residential real estate component to the deal will add thousands of units to a market that likley is already overbuilt. This will lead the developer to delay construction and back out of most of their community benefit agreemetns. Legacy for Brooklyn will be a money losing stadium which creates traffic hell, provides little benefit for adjacent communities and a leaves a “blighted” landscape unitl the project finally gets built out 20 years from now. All subsidized by NYC taxpayers.
Agreed!! AND, no one mentions the hundreds of jobs that will be created thereby benefitting the community, its residents, and increasing tax collections.
10:28 no thats what YOU want – the NIMBYS want low-rise housing or nothing. But regardless – if its not AY it will be nothing but an eyesore for at least another 20 years.
People just want something world class there, not the Times Square abortion Ratner is planning.
Yeah sure – 95% of what is the proposed AY site has been a (railyard)pit, vacant/parking lots, and decrepit warehouses/garages since at least the 1960’s. Ratner (not my buddy) didnt “create” any of it – but keep spreading your NIMBY propaganda.