After Its $150 Million Transformation, the Brooklyn Nets’ Arena Now Has An Art Gallery, A Chef’s Table, And More

Here’s a sentence I never expected to type about a basketball arena: you’ll want to show up early for the ceiling. Barclays Center has just unveiled the third phase of its five-year, $150 million-plus transformation, timed rather conveniently to the 2026–27 NBA season and the Brooklyn Nets’ 60th anniversary, and the headliners this time aren’t wearing jerseys. They’re a Sarah Sze installation called WAVE, a DUMBO-coded club with show kitchens and a front-row view of the locker room tunnel, and a new Amex Lounge pouring a spicy mango margarita I would happily build an entire evening around.

There’s also a brand-new control room. The production team is thrilled. You, I suspect, will be more interested in the sushi.

Photo Credit: Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment

Look Up. No, Really.

The reimagined Main Atrium now comes with WAVE, a site-specific piece by Sze that makes the ceiling feel less like décor and more like weather. Some 550 bespoke acrylic LED sculptural screens ripple overhead in a wave-like form, sending birds, rushing water, shifting skies, trees, and Brooklyn cityscapes careening across the space in a crescendo of light, color, and motion. It’s Sze’s largest moving-image installation to date and, crucially, a far better use of your time than refreshing the group chat to figure out where your friends are.

An adjacent 180-degree LED wall keeps the show going, because apparently one immersive moment wasn’t enough (I’m not complaining). Over at the new American Express Card Member Entrance, monumental paintings by Mark Bradford and Rashid Johnson handle the greeting. All of it falls under Brooklyn Art Encounters, the arena’s ongoing campaign to put serious contemporary art in places you’d normally expect a merch kiosk.

The less glamorous news is still good news: the box office has been modernized, with ticket headaches now handled separately from guest services, and the old-school windows on Flatbush Avenue are staying put. The only drama anyone needs before a game should come from the starting lineup.

Photo Credit: Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment

Come Hungry. Stay for the Walk-Ins.

Down on the event level, the club has been reborn as a 9,000-square-foot love letter to DUMBO: steel trusses, brick, concrete, an Ijen Blue stone feature wall, and a sculptural hood hovering over the food service area like a piece of industrial jewelry. (Hospitality ambitions here are nothing new; Haute Living was covering the neighborhood’s grumbling over Jay-Z’s planned 40/40 Club before the arena even opened.)

But the detail Nets diehards will clock first is overhead: a custom installation built from game-used sections of the franchise’s inaugural Brooklyn herringbone court, in play from 2012 to 2019. Retired floorboards, now suspended above the party. A better afterlife than most of us can expect.

Then, the food. Levy Restaurants runs the show with sushi, carved meats, rotating themed spreads, and the requisite crowd-pleasers, laid out across interactive stations clearly engineered to send you back for a second (fine, third) lap. It’s the only premium space in the arena with show kitchens, so you can watch dinner come together in real time. And yes, there’s a dedicated pizza oven, because this is Brooklyn and anything less would frankly be grounds for eviction.

A 93-foot LED screen runs the length of the room so nobody misses a possession mid-plate. The real flex, though, is access: the club offers a behind-the-scenes peek at the practice court and exclusive views of Nets players making their way to and from the locker room.

Dinner with a side of player arrivals.

I’ll allow it.

Photo Credit: Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment

The Platinum Card Finally Earns Its Keep

Up on the Suite Level, the new Amex Lounge gives eligible American Express Platinum Card and Centurion Members somewhere civilized to land before heading to their seats: comfortable seating, panoramic views over Flatbush Avenue, and a second, arguably better angle on WAVE. Curated bites and specialty cocktails are available for purchase (this is not an open bar, darling, so adjust expectations accordingly), including the arena’s Brooklyn Signature, a spicy mango margarita riffing on the borough’s beloved spiced mango vendors.

Order that. Thank me later.

The fine print: you’ll need an event ticket to get in, Platinum Card Members can bring one guest, Centurion Members up to three, and everything is subject to capacity and terms. (Translation: do not roll up with your entire fantasy league.)

Even getting through the door is more elegant now. Off Flatbush, the new American Express Card Member Entrance, open to all Amex Card Members, sweeps up to the Main Concourse and Suite Level via a grand staircase with terrazzo flooring. Right next to it, a separate VIP entrance heads straight to the Suite Level and Gallagher Terrace. Both use technology designed to speed up screening, which matters a great deal when there’s a margarita waiting upstairs.

Photo Credit: Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment

The Upgrade You’ll Never See (But Will Definitely Feel)

Some of the heaviest lifting happened in a room most guests will never set foot in. Barclays Center has completed its first major control room overhaul since opening in 2012, replacing core video infrastructure and refreshing cameras, replay systems, graphics, and the rest of the production arsenal. I’ll spare you the spec sheet. The point is simple: more firepower to make a big game, or a big concert, feel even bigger. Longtime tech partner Cisco supplies the network infrastructure keeping it all connected and ready to scale.

“At Barclays Center, we are shaping the future of arena hospitality,” says Shanon Ferguson, chief hospitality officer of Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, who frames the mission as making every moment, from street to seat, feel intentional and memorable. Lofty? Sure. But on the evidence of this phase, I’m not inclined to argue.

Populous led the design, Shawmut Design and Construction managed the build, and this round joins earlier additions like Gallagher Terrace, The Toki Row, JetBlue at The Key, and Modelo Bridge. Two phases remain, with the upper concourse up next for serious attention, so the nosebleeds may yet get their moment.

Until then, my advice is simple: get there early. Between the art overhead, the sushi downstairs, and that margarita upstairs, making it to your seat by tip-off is going to require real discipline.

Mine, admittedly, is questionable.

Photo Credit: Nicholas Knight

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Frequently Asked Questions

What’s new at Barclays Center for the 2026–27 season?

The arena has completed phase three of a five-year, $150 million-plus transformation. Highlights include Sarah Sze’s WAVE installation in the Main Atrium, a reimagined 9,000-square-foot event level club, a new Amex Lounge on the Suite Level, new entrances, a modernized box office, and a full control room upgrade.

What is Sarah Sze’s WAVE at Barclays Center?

WAVE is a site-specific installation of 550 bespoke acrylic LED sculptural screens arranged in a wave-like form across the Main Atrium ceiling. It shows birds, water, skies, trees, and Brooklyn cityscapes in motion, and is the artist’s largest moving-image installation to date.

What is the Brooklyn Signature cocktail?

A spicy mango margarita inspired by Brooklyn’s spiced mango vendors, served in the Amex Lounge.