NoLandGrab NoLandGrab's List: Ellerbe Becket

In 2004, Gehry led a group that was competing to design the Sprint Center in downtown Kansas City. The city wound up choosing an all-star consortium of local sports architecture firms, the Downtown Arena Design Team. Ellerbe Becket was part of the winning group.

New designs for a proposed NBA basketball arena at the controversial Atlantic Yards site received overwhelmingly poor reviews Tuesday from disappointed ooklynites. Designs got failing grades, even from supporters of the project.

Thanks to a tip from our friend Kristen Richards over at ArchNewsNow, we found our way over to this extended piece where Brett Yormark, CEO of the Nets and Bill Crockett, Ellerbe's principle on the project, were busy defending the decision and the new plans, explaining how great this all will be for Brooklyn in the end and Yorkmark saying things like "We're going to brand Brooklyn in a big-time way." Though outside of naming the two levels in the building "Brownstones" and "Lofts" (ugh), moving the entrances to street level, and building a practice facility next door, there's not a lot of explanation as to why this is going to be so great for the area -- it seems like just coasting on enthusiasm and hoping no one catches on. Ooh, maybe they could paint a couple of quick murals showing Brooklyn's famous moments in history? Or have "authentic New York hot dogs"? That stuff always works in every single other city in the world.

Barclays won’t look like leaked rendering, Ellerbe Becket says

So, remember that Atlantic Yards arena "hangar" design that appeared in the NY Times and elsewhere, which the Times' critic Nicolai Ouroussoff ripped to shreds? Yup, that one that Ratner said is "not his intention," the one that City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden supposedly "leaked," but somehow appears in the official state document governing the Atlantic Yards project (more on that from Norman Oder in relation to this article)?

Well now the hangar's arena's lead architect Ellerbe Becket says that the real rendering will knock your socks off with its evocative "working-class industrial hub" feel replete with "bunker style" luxury suites.

Presumably the "working-class industrial hub" look would be a facade.

ESDC's 6/23/09 Technical Memorandum

"We are being asked to comment on a phantom project, to review a project without being able to view the project plans. This is beyond ludicrous," said Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn spokesman Daniel Goldstein.

Since star architect Frank Gehry was booted from the project to save money, the Kansas City firm Ellerbe Beckett has been working to design a stripped-down arena for the Nets.

"The design is not complete yet," Forest City Ratner Executive Vice President MaryAnne Gilmartin said last week, adding that renderings would be released in September or October.

But Gilmartin also said the developer may not put out the images before the board votes - and doesn't have to.

ESDC counsel Steve Matlin agreed, saying Ratner isn't required by law to show images of the project before the final vote, as long as design guidelines are followed.

But Assemblyman Jim Brennan (D-Kensington) said ESDC was breaking the rules by moving the project forward without a design plan or a new environmental study. "You've violated the rights of New Yorkers," he said at the hearing.

"The state is imposing this project on the community without its consent."

Gilmartin also insisted the project will look nothing like images circulating publicly that have been compared to a barn or an airplane hangar.

The young firm, which has never designed an arena, will work alongside Eberle Beckett — experts at efficient, if uninspiring, stadium design.

After dropping famed architect Frank Gehry from the Nets basketball arena planned for Brooklyn, the developer of the massive mixed-use project has brought in New York-based architecture firm SHoP to assist in the design of the venue, according to a person informed of the decision.

The developer, Forest City Ratner, plans to unveil renderings of the $800 million arena later this month.

SHoP Hops Into Atlantic Yards Fight. Arena Design Besides the Point

"BECKET + SHoP THY NAME IS EMINENT DOMAIN"

In choosing not to accept the case, the Court of Appeals chose not to engage with claims regarding consultant AKRF's misrepresentations of crime data and the failure to analyze real estate rents and values, as was requested in the original contract with AKRF.