No office tower at Nets Brooklyn arena site - for now

The developer of a new $900 million arena for the Nets acknowledged that the market is too soft to build an office tower at the 22-acre Brooklyn development that the arena will anchor.

Instead, Bruce Ratner released plans for a temporary plaza in front of the arena that he said will be replaced by an office building when the economy picks up.

The 18,000-seat Nets arena is on schedule to open in 2012, said Ratner, whose Forest City Ratner Cos. hopes to eventually build 16 skyscrapers on the property, called Atlantic Yards. He said a design for the project's first residential tower would be released early next year.

The arena, to be called the Barclays Center, is under construction near Atlantic and Flatbush avenues. The plaza will occupy 38,885 square feet there. - AP