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Forest City executive says shrinking arena to preclude major league hockey was conscious choice, downplays modular construction as "research project"
Aril 19, 2011
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So much for Nets CEO Brett Yormark's coy statements about how arena promoters would "would love the [New York] Islanders [hockey team] to play a couple of games at the Barclays Center."
It's long been suspected that the arena would be too small to accommodate major league hockey, and even a market analysis commissioned by Forest City Ratner stated that "the arena would need to be retrofitted to accommodate the ice-making abilities the NHL requires for its franchises."
Last week, Bob Sanna, Forest City Ratner Executive VP for Construction, told a Pratt Institute School of Architecture audience that, to design a smaller arena that could be financed, "we made some pretty deliberate decisions early on: we weren't going to have a [professional] hockey team."
He noted that, to make an ice floor, the seats move in one direction only, which doesn't make for good hockey sightlines.
That doesn't preclude some hockey games, just a season. The tight, smaller arena--675,000 square feet in the Ellerbe Becket (plus SHoP on the facade) design, opposed to 850,000 square feet in the original Frank Gehry design--furthers a focus on basketball.
Project features
Sanna noted a significant benefit for arena-goers: the arena lower bowl would be below grade with the scoreboard visible to passers-by, so half of those entering the arena will not have to climb upstairs, as at Madison Square Garden and at many other arenas.
He noted that the oculus at the arena entrance, which will provide promotional signage, allows for views from multiple angles, rather than simply facing the arena.
The arena will have 200 Wi-Fi points, which help with concession transactions, as well as a DAS (Distributed Antenna System) to ensure the building's wired for visitors.
Sanna said eight acres of open space were planned, as a "Battery Park City-type environment"--a statement that fails to note that, in the latter project, the open space came first, not last.
He said the developer is now construction the first phase of the permanent railyard, part of "five stages of track relocation."
Forest City Ratner is building a new mass transit connection, stairs and a passageway to the Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street subway hub. One challenge: significant deterioration in subway structures (presumably as described here).
For the 18,000-seat arena, "we think eight to ten thousand people will probably come by public transit," he said.
Another challenge involved the relocation of of utilities, such as gas, water, and cable, from Pacific Street in the center of the arena block to the perimeter of the arena block.
Arena redesign
Sanna noted that initial bidding on arena plans began in 2007 and 2008, a "very difficult time in construction pricing. The numbers we were getting were astronomical."
The volume of the Gehry arena was in part driven by the need to accommodate hockey, but such a building could not be financed, he said. So Forest City "started from scratch" at the end of 2008.
He showed a schematic of the project footprint, pointing out that the space for Building 3, at the southwest corner of Dean Street and Sixth Avenue, would serve as temporary open space and accommodate bicycle parking.
He pointed to the practice facility, located near the northwest corner of the site, as well as private club areas.
Successful arenas allow trucks access to the event floor, allowing equipment load-in for events such as concerts and circuses. "We wanted that advantage in order to compete," he said.
There are no ramps, but two "huge truck elevators" to accomplish that purpose.
Construction issues
Sanna said Brooklyn offered advantages for constructing an arena. Unlike in Manhattan, where builders encounter rock, or Queens, where they hit soupy soil, in Brooklyn's there's dense sand and gravel.
The water table is 25 feet below grade, while the building will be 20 feet below grade; only the drilling for the foundations for truck elevators has encountered the water table.
He said construction of the arena proceeded in a counter-clockwise direction from the northeast part of the arena block because "we had tenants yet to be relocated"--a reference to residents, notably project opponent Daniel Goldstein and his family, living on Pacific Street.
(Goldstein owned his condo and only at the last moment, after the exercise of eminent domain, was a tenant of the state; he was never a tenant of the developer.)
Sanna noted that the "building we took a lot of our cues from, Conseco" Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, is made out of reinforced concrete, but the Brooklyn arena is made out of structural steel.
Recognizing security issues, he said, the building is designed with "a completely redundant load path" aimed to ensure its stability.
The steel facade, and delays
Sanna described the steel facade designed by SHoP as intended to rust and have a "gritty urban character."
As with the Beekman Tower and the Times Tower, mock-ups have been used to show vendors what's needed for the facade.
In this case, arena builders aim to have pre-weathered steel experience the equivalent of eight years of wet/dry cycles, a process that takes four months, at 24 hours a day.
This is being done by the firm ASILimited in Indiana, which states that "Field erection is planned to start July 2011."
It's unclear whether that timetable is solid. Sanna said that the process of "weathering cycles" is behind, with efforts afoot to speed up the process.
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