Barclays Center CEO: team store moving (off Flatbush?), new arena entrances (on Flatbush?) to be added

From an 11/3/20 New York Post article about the new Barclays Center CEO, John Abbamondi brings Navy mindset to Nets: ‘Improvise, adapt and overcome’:

“We’re taking advantage of this time,” Abbamondi told The Post. “We’ve tried to be strategic … use this time to prepare ourselves for when we do bring fans back. We’re investing a lot right now to make the Barclays Center experience even better than it was.” 

Among those ways was the hiring of executive chef Livio Velardo, who’d been the Executive Chef at Balthazar. They’re also making a significantly larger team store in a different part of the arena, renovating some of their club spaces, including the Diamond Club and building new entrances to help with ingress and egress.

Swag Shop Oct. 2016/AYR

Well, they sure don't want to have long lines of people mashed up against each other while there are concerns about the coronavirus, so improving visitor flow is a prudent idea.

That said--as noted by NetsDaily--if the arena sells all its seats, it's impossible for visitors to avoid being packed together.

Where might the store move?

The team store was presumably well-located on Flatbush Avenue just off the arena plaza. 

The reference to "a different part of the arena" suggests that they wouldn't simply expand along Flatbush, the most obvious idea, given that no long-term tenant chose the adjacent retail spaces, and the arena was forced to propose a "Featured on Flatbush" pop-up once WPIX exited.

So that sounds like a move to the Atlantic Avenue side of the arena, which, for now, gets significantly less foot traffic, or even the Sixth Avenue side of the arena. 

In either case, it seems--at least based on my preliminary speculation--that they're expecting more business from event goers than random passers-by. Consider that, over the next few years, a very competitive Brooklyn Nets squad should sell a lot of merch featuring stars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.

Where might the entrances emerge?

Keep in mind that the main entrance now is the arena plaza, and the secondary entrance on Dean Streeet. There's a VIP entrance on Atlantic Avenue, and another secondary entrance on Atlantic. That might be expandable.

I'd bet that at least one new entrance would be on Flatbush Avenue, between the plaza and the Dean Street entrance--perhaps the area currently occupied by the team store, and/or another retail outlet. 

Sixth Ave. doors,
via Google Street View

There's also a "nook" with doors at the end of the arena structure where it bumps up against the 461 Dean tower, and sometimes workers have been seen hanging out there. Not sure if that could be expanded.

It's not implausible that they'd consider using the doors at Sixth Avenue and the extension of Pacific Street--but that's between the 38 Sixth tower and the under-construction 18 Sixth tower, and across the street from the under-construction 37 Sixth tower, and the future B5 (700 Atlantic Avenue). 

In other words, it could be congested.

From the Design Guidelines

The 2006 project Design Guidelines state:

The Atlantic Avenue and Flatbush Avenue ground floor street frontages of the Arena Block shall incorporate a variety of retail and pedestrian based activities, including retail space accessible to the street and pedestrian seating areas. Not less than 40% of the Atlantic Avenue, 15% of the Flatbush Avenue street frontages, shall be devoted to retail uses, which may include eating and drinking establishments. The Atlantic Avenue retail requirement shall include retail use in front of the Arena volume which may include a sidewalk market opening on the street, provided that the market shall not occupy more than 180 linear feet of the Atlantic Avenue frontage. The Flatbush Avenue Street frontage shall incorporate a sitting area with a minimum length of 150 feet of which 40% may be in conjunction with an adjoining retail use.

Note that that's a relatively limited requirement for Flatbush Avenue retail use. 

Also note that the sidewalk market--aka "b-market"--on Atlantic Avenue, once touted by City Planning Commission Chairperson Amanda Burden, never emerged. 

After all, the arena operator once planned Atlantic Avenue retail spaces that also served passers-by, but that never worked.