From Bilbao To Indianapolis For Just $200 Million

But we’ll always have Miss Brooklyn:

Citing financial concerns, the developer of the long-delayed Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn has scrapped plans for a Frank Gehry-designed $1 billion glass-walled basketball arena for the Nets in favor of a less expensive arena. The new design, which will cost about $200 million less, comes from Ellerbe Becket, an architectural firm based in Kansas City, Mo., that specializes in convention centers, stadiums and arenas and designed Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, where the Indiana Pacers play. Officials who have seen the design say that while it resembles Conseco Fieldhouse it also bears a likeness to an “airplane hangar.”

The new design, which will cost about $200 million less, comes from Ellerbe Becket, an architectural firm based in Kansas City, Mo., that specializes in convention centers, stadiums and arenas and designed Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, where the Indiana Pacers play. Officials who have seen the design say that while it resembles Conseco Fieldhouse it also bears a likeness to an “airplane hangar.”

. . .

“The current economic climate is not right for this design,” Mr. Ratner said of the Gehry design in a statement released Thursday afternoon, “and with Frank’s understanding, the arena is undergoing a redesign that will make it more limited in scope.”

Mr. Ratner has said he is eager to get started with what he says will be a world-class project.

Mr. Gehry, the award-winning architect behind the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, added that while he regretted the demise of his arena design, he remained “extremely proud of our work on the Atlantic Yards master plan and on the original arena.”

Location Scout: Atlantic Yards.