Category: Brooklyn Nets Blog

After what feels like 4,500 delays, the New Jersey Nets may finally break ground this December in Brooklyn, New York to build their future home arena. And as a New Yorker who would much rather take the subway to Nets games than have to keep going to Manhattan’s Port Authority to wait on giant lines for buses that then sit in traffic jams, I say the sooner the better. Here’s the New York Times (Charles V. Bagli):

The developer Bruce C. Ratner has told state and city officials that he plans to break ground in December on his long-delayed $4 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, which will feature thousands of apartments and offices in 16 towers built around a glamorous basketball arena for the Nets. But it is unclear whether Mr. Ratner will be able to meet his own deadline to start one of the most ambitious projects in Brooklyn in decades, given the softening economy, the crisis in the debt markets, rising costs and a persistent group of opponents who have filed one lawsuit after another.

This isn’t sure to happen, though. Here’s more from the New York Times:

“There’s no way they’ll get control of the land they need, get the financing, end the litigation and break ground by December,” said Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, the project’s primary opponent. Andrew DeSouza, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, declined to comment on whether a decision concerning tax-exempt financing for stadiums and arenas was imminent. The Internal Revenue Service issued proposed regulations in 2006 that would make it more difficult, if not impossible, for tax-exempt bonds to be used for private sports teams.

I agree with the guy above that getting this all done by December may be tough. But I disagree with him that this project is “destroying” Brooklyn. Aside from adding what will probably be some insane traffic jams, it makes Brooklyn better.

What will happen first: The Nets move to Brooklyn, or TJ Kidd’s grandchildren get college basketball scholarships? Tough call. The NJ Nets, who will eventually leave Eastern New Jersey and land right in the heart of Brooklyn, NJ, have been optimistic for years now that the move is only a few years away from happening, but delays keep popping up, and now it sounds like the most realistic optimistic estimate is 2011. But to me – and I care a lot about this story because I’m a NYer but don’t actually follow it closely other than the bottom-line details – even that sounds tough to pull off. I’m guessing it doesn’t happen until 2012 or even 2013, and I’m not basing that on any real info, so feel free to toss that prediction aside.

As for the news, the New York Daily News (Julian Garcia) reports:

If the Nets do manage to sign potential free agent LeBron James before the start of the 2010-11 season, it’s possible their fans in New Jersey could get the first look at him, as opposed to those in Brooklyn. The company that plans to build the team’s new home in Brooklyn acknowledged Monday that the arena may not be open until the 2010-11 season is well underway. While saying the plan remains to move the team to Brooklyn in “calendar year 2010,” a representative of Forest City Ratner – Nets owner Bruce Ratner’s company – admitted that schedule “is in fact very aggressive.

I look forward to the eventual move, because taking the subway to and from games is much easier than always having to go specifically to the Port Authority to take the bus, which is the only public transportation option to get to current Nets games.