http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/ny...l?_r=1&src=twr
Developer Drops Gehry Design for Brooklyn Arena
The new design for the Nets arena by Ellerbe Becket, an architectural firm based in Kansas City, Mo.
By CHARLES V. BAGLI
June 4, 2009
It’s official.
Frank Gehry is out as the architect for the Barclays Center arena, the centerpiece of the long-delayed and financially challenged Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, according to government officials and real estate executives who have been briefed on the plans.
The exotic, $1 billion glass-walled design by Mr. Gehry, the award-winning architect behind the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, has been replaced with a less-expensive, $800 million arena.
The new design comes from Ellerbe Becket, an architectural firm based in Kansas City, Mo., that specializes in convention centers, stadiums and arenas, and designed Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, where the Indiana Pacers play. Officials who have seen the latest design for the Brooklyn arena say that while it resembles Conseco Fieldhouse, it also bears a likeness to an “airplane hangar.”
The developer of Atlantic Yards, Bruce C. Ratner, chief executive of the Forest City Ratner Companies, scrapped Mr. Gehry’s plans primarily for economic reasons. The $4 billion project has been hobbled by lawsuits, a recession and its own ambitious goal to build 6,400 apartments, 40 percent of which would be reserved for low- to middle-income families. Forest City Ratner was the development partner for the Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company.
Mr. Ratner, who won a major court victory over opponents to Atlantic Yards last month, is racing to pare costs and start construction of the 20,000-seat arena by the end of the year, when his right to use tax-exempt financing expires. Officially, the developer says the arena is supposed to be ready in 2011 as the new home for the Nets, who will move to Brooklyn from the Meadowlands in New Jersey.
There have been rumors since December, often based on comments by Mr. Gehry, that he was no longer involved with the arena. However, Mr. Ratner, who also had Mr. Gehry design a residential skyscraper in Lower Manhattan, had so far declined to make it public. But in recent days, the developer has been circulating the new design among state and city officials as he seeks formal approval of the changes.
Mr. Gehry is still the master planner for the 22-acre development, which is at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. But in a concession to the collapsing commercial and residential real estate markets, the developer has delayed most of the housing and a proposed office tower.
In an interview last month, Mr. Ratner said he planned to start the first residential tower, which would contain a large percentage of units for low-, moderate- and middle-income families, about six to nine months after work began on the arena.