The Daily Newarker

With the collapse of support from financiers, the Atlantic Yards community, and NJ Nets fans, one wonders if this story will end in anything other than hubris: For Nets, Barriers to Brooklyn Fall Slowly.

After the hundreds of millions of dollars lost, and final completion for the arena now set for as late as 2011, the break-even point for this project has to be in the late 20-teens. I think a lot of people would love to see this project fail and the Nets come to Newark.

But, not all is lost: the Nets will play two pre-season games here in Newark in October. Who’s coming with me?

But Forest City must break ground by Dec. 31 to meet the Internal Revenue Service’s deadline to sell tax-exempt bonds. If the developer misses the deadline, financing costs will leap. “Bruce and I have never talked about missing that deadline,” Yormark said.

The same deadline appears to loom for the 20-year, $400 million naming-rights deal between the Nets and Barclays. Barclays extended the sponsorship beyond last year because of continued construction delays, but a spokesman refused to say if it would do so again.

Daniel Goldstein, a leader and spokesman of Develop Don’t Destroy, said he did not believe Forest City would meet the deadline, not with his group’s appeal of the eminent domain decision and intention to file more lawsuits to delay the project until its death.

“They’re not going to get financing this year or control of the land this year,” Goldstein said during an interview in his condominium on Pacific Street, which would be about midcourt of the proposed arena. He, his wife and baby daughter are the only occupants of the nine-story building, the other 30 unit owners having long ago accepted Ratner’s buyout offers.

“I don’t even think they know what will make them give up,” he said.

One also wonders if this guy was living where center ice at the Prudential Center is now whether Newark’s arena ever would have been built.