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The Brooklyn Nets will build a $50 million training facility atop an eight floor industrial building overlooking New York Harbor, according to people with knowledge of the plan. The building, part of the 16-building Industry City complex off 39th Street in Brooklyn, will house the training facility and team offices. To accommodate the needs of the team, the Nets will raise the roof by approximately 20 feet.
The facility will not be completed until the summer of 2015, meaning the Nets will remain at the PNY Center in East Rutherford for the next two seasons. The Nets are declining comment.
The commitment, by Mikhail Prokhorov and the Nets, is just the latest example of the Russian ownership group's willingness to spend extraordinary amounts of money on the team and its facilities. The selection of the site and negotiations to secure the lease were headed by Irina Pavlova, president of ONEXIM Sports and Entertainment USA, and David Carlock, a sports facility consultant and member of the Barclays Center board of directors.
The plan also further cements the Nets' relationship with Brooklyn ... and serves as a contrast to the Knicks, who use the MSG Training Center in suburban Westchester County. The Nets looked at more than 30 prospective sites in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Jersey City before deciding on Industry City's Building 19, a century-old industrial building whose lower floors house small high-tech manufacturing facilities and creative spaces for artists and designers. The training facility space offers spectacular views of Lower Manhattan and the nearby Statue of Liberty.
The Nets also plan to provide community access to the facility.
Jamestown Properties is hoping to turn the 40-acre site into Brooklyn's version of Manhattan's Meatpacking District. The Nets training facility is intended as the anchor of that plan. Ferry service to the area is planned. There is a nearby subway stop on 36th and 4th served by the D, N and R lines. It is a little more than three miles from Barclays Center, roughly a 10-minute drive.
The next step will be for the Nets and Jamestown to seek municipal approvals on the plan, including signage. Once that's done, construction will take a year, according to estimates. The Nets hope to sell naming rights for the facility, much as it did for Barclays Center and the PNY Center.