| Stadium Name: | Barclays Center |
| Location: | Brooklyn, New York |
| Broke Ground: | 2009 |
| Opened: | 2011 (Tentative) |
| Owner: | Forest City Enterprises |
| Operator: | New Jersey Nets (a Forest City subsidiary) |
| Surface: | 22 acres (entire complex) |
| Construction Cost: | $3.5 billion (entire project) |
| Architect: | Frank Gehry |
| Tenants: | New Jersey Nets [1] (NBA) (2011–) |
| Seating Capacity: | 25,000 (estimated, depending on configuration) |
The Barclays Center is a proposed sports arena to be built partly on a platform over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority-owned Atlantic Yards at Atlantic Avenue in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is part of a proposed $3.5 billion sports arena, business and residential complex. The site is intended to serve as a new home for the National Basketball Association's New Jersey Nets, currently based at Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The MTA site is 8.3abbr=onNaNabbr=on; the Atlantic Yards project site would be 22abbr=onNaNabbr=on.
The arena is scheduled to open in 2011 along with the rest of the complex; however, controversies involving local residents and the use of eminent domain as well as a lack of funding have delayed the project.[2] The project is created by Brooklyn developer Bruce Ratner, who acquired the Nets in 2004, with the purpose of moving them from New Jersey to this site near the Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street New York City Subway station and the Long Island Rail Road terminus in Brooklyn, one of the most transit-accessible locations in the city. The move would mark the return of major league sports to Brooklyn, which has been absent since the departure of the Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1957 (their proposal for the world's first domed stadium at the Atlantic Yards to replace the unprofitable Ebbets Field had been turned down by the city in the past).
Designed by architect Frank Gehry, the arena would host the Nets, along with concerts, conventions and other sporting events, competing with Madison Square Garden and the Prudential Center, among other facilities. The arena's roof would feature a park open only to residents of the Atlantic Yards complex, ringed by an open-air running track that doubles as a skating rink in winter with panoramic vistas facing Manhattan year-round.
The arena will also be able to host hockey games with an NHL sized rink. Brooklyn is geographically the western end of Long Island, and many on other parts of the island have roots there, suggesting that the New York Islanders could play games there (perhaps permanently). The Nets and Islanders shared Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum from 1972 to 1977.
It has been reported that London-based Barclays Bank has agreed to pay the team $400 million over the next 20 years for the naming rights of their future Brooklyn home. On January 18, 2007 it was announced that the arena would be called Barclays Center, becoming the third major league sports venue to be called a center in the NYC metro area. The New Jersey Devils hockey team now play in Newark, New Jersey at the Prudential Center, and the former home of the Devils and the current home of the Nets, Continental Airlines Arena, changed its name to the Izod Center.[3]
On September 10, 2008, it was reported by the New York Times that Barclays' contract for the naming rights ends at the end of November 2008 if the developer, Forest City Ratner, has not closed on the land and financing it needs to build the arena.[4]
The deal is heading towards failing or falling apart,[5] and Ratner has explored selling the team.[6] Since the deal is near failing there remains a possibility that the Nets will potentially move into the Prudential Center in Downtown Newark, New Jersey.