Barclays Center is going to look different next season, starting from the moment you walk in the door.
Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment this week offered new details on the continuing renovation of Barclays Center, a $150 million project that began two years ago with the creation of two new clubs, the Toki Row and Jet Blue Lounge in what formerly were 30 suite spaces and has continued with other high-end club, The Gallagher Terrace, as well as more accessible Modelo Bridge which dominates the west
end of the arena.
Now, the five-year project is moving into entrance spaces, including the atrium where the arena enhancements will be most notable. Think art.
The Tsais and Kochs are not just creating a new look for the 13-year-old space where 70% of fans enter the building, but a new experience with art installations literally topped by a new airborne sculpture by New York artist Sarah Sze, one suspended from the ceiling as well as a 180-degree LED wall (by SNA Displays) wrapping its interior.
BSE didn’t release images or much details of the new sculpture called “Wave,” but described it this way:
As viewers move through the space, these shifting sequences register differently from each vantage point, producing a sensation of cresting movement that is never fixed but constantly in flux. Serving as both a dynamic focal point and an experiential threshold, Wave transforms the atrium into a dynamic field of light, motion, and perception
Sze’s most prominent work in the New York area is her “Shorter than the Day,” another airborne sculpture at LaGuardia’s Terminal B, featuring 1,500 photos of the New York sky, arranged from dawn, to midday, to dusk.
The atrium will also feature other aesthetic changes, led by the 360-degree LED wall, and a redesign of the lobby.
The arena’s ticketing box office will be reduced and reshaped. With fewer people buying tickets at the arena, it will become the arena’s “ticket resolution and guest services hub.”
Art will be a theme of the overall renovation. Outside on the Oculus, “Art on the Hour” will present a new digital art series, in partnership with Barclays Bank. The program will present 60-second works on the Oculus screen at the top of each hour, each by a single artist each month. That program will debut next month.
Nearby on Ticketmaster Plaza, Brooklyn-native Kambui Olujimi, will present “We Always Have Room For One More,” a group of seven bronze historical and fictional characters playing the local street game Skelly
At the new American Express entrance and lounge on Flatbush Avenue, there will be two large scale paintings by Rashid Johnson and Mark Bradford
“The artists in this program aren’t simply participants, they have helped us consider and ultimately realize how we create space for art in public life,” said Clara Wu Tsai, the vice-chairman of BSE and sponsor of various other art installations in the past, Among other things, she has shepherded the “You Belong Here/We Belong Here” video sculpture above the Barclays Center subway entrance and “The Liberty Portraits: A Monument to the 2024 Champions,” the plaza photo installation honoring the 2024 WNBA champion New York Liberty
“Brooklyn has one of the greatest concentrations of creative talent anywhere in the world, and Barclays Center is one of its busiest transit points. This program places art in dialogue with the architecture and daily rhythm of the plaza, redefining what a sports arena can be for fans, players, and the public.”
The new Amex entrance will provide direct access to the main concourse and, via a grand staircase, the suite level. The lounge includes “American Express-inspired” artwork, a full private bar with specialty cocktails for purchase, and panoramic views overlooking Flatbush Ave., 5th Ave., and the main atrium.
Earlier this year, BSE also announced a redesign for the event-level space that once housed the Calvin Klein and Qatar Airways lounge.
The 9,000-square-foot space will essentially retain its primary function but receive an aesthetic update. Its new name will be revealed later in the year, says BSE.
The new design, by Populous, is inspired by “Dumbo,” the term used for the areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn either side of the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge. Like Dumbo, the renovated club will have exposed concrete and steel trusses.
The enhancements also include some behind-the-stage additions including stars’ dressing rooms, an upgrade for the arena’s LED content management system, new broadcast cameras, video switcher, router, instant replay, graphics, and intercom. (No word on an upgrade of the arena’s often troubled wi-fi.)
In the future, the program will include a new scoreboard and enhancements to the audio systems.
Before the latest renovations, the arena while one of the NBA’s newest arenas was seen, as Sports Business Journal wrote in early 2024, “well down the line in recent years in terms of major capital expenditures, whether on a new building or renovation.”
Since then, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment got a cash infusion when the Tsais’ sold 15% of the company for $688 million to members of the Koch family, led by Julia Koch and including her three children, one of whom, David Koch Jr., has been a basketball operations assistant working for Sean Marks. At the time, Joe Tsai said he intended to plow much of the cash into the arena and fan experience.
- Third phase of $150M Barclays Center renovation kicking off ($) – Bret McCormick – Sports Business Journal
