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World Trade Center Won’t Be Back ‘Til 2037

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Raychel
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« on: September 19, 2009, 04:52:39 am »

World Trade Center Won’t Be Back ‘Til 2037
Endless delays drag on
By JENNIFER MILLMAN



It will be nearly 40 years after 9/11 before the World Trade Center rises again.

Ground Zero’s owners have proposed indefinitely postponing the construction of two of three skyscrapers planned by developer Larry Silverstein.

Real estate magnate Cushman & Wakefield drafted a report for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on Silverstein's plan for his three towers. It predicts that one tower may not be built until 2037, according to the Daily News.

And the 1,776-foot Freedom tower – the heart of the reconstruction – won’t have occupants until 2019.
   
The study paints a bleak picture of the future of Ground Zero – one beleaguered by delays, costs and contentious talks that blanket the legacy of the site in a bureaucratic shroud.
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Raychel
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« Reply #1 on: September 19, 2009, 04:53:01 am »

Deputy Majority Leader Sen. Jeff Klein, who represents Westchester and the Bronx, called the timeline "unacceptable."

Unfortunately, this is an agency that hasn’t been able to comply with a single rebuilding deadline since 9/11.  It's time for the Port Authority to get the job done – as they've promised again and again over the past eight years," he said.

Officials familiar with ongoing talks with Silverstein and the Port Authority say the agency has agreed to back financing for one of three planned Silverstein towers. Silverstein wants financial backing for two towers.
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« Reply #2 on: September 19, 2009, 04:53:28 am »

But the Port Authority, which calls the study a “market-driven analysis” rather than a proposal, according to the Daily News, says the real estate market conditions should determine when the other two towers are built. Given the current economic crisis and real estate meltdown, it’s a wonder whether the towers will be built at all.

"The Port Authority's obligation is to rebuild the site in the public interest based on the economic reality today," Port Authority spokeswoman Candace McAdams told the Daily News. "That starts with keeping the memorial and the other public infrastructure on the time line and budget we've committed to. It extends to building the right amount of office space to meet what is now a very different market downtown."

Silverstein’s camp purports some optimism.

"The Port Authority's position seems to be based on a totally pessimistic attitude about New York's economic future," Janno Lieber, director of Silverstein's World Trade Center redevelopment effort, told the Daily News. "Our view is that New York will bounce back strongly over the next five years while we are building these buildings."

Well, Ms. Lieber, we certainly hope you’re right.

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/World-Trade-Center-Wont-Be-Back-Til-2037.html
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« Reply #3 on: September 19, 2009, 04:55:53 am »

November 17, 2008, 1:30 pm
Why Quintuplets Instead of Twins?
By David W. Dunlap




A concrete worker walking across a bed of reinforcing steel this month at 1 World Trade Center. (Photo: David W. Dunlap/The New York Times)
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« Reply #4 on: September 19, 2009, 04:56:22 am »

Christopher O. Ward, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, opened the floor to questions from around the country about the World Trade Center and found that there is still a passionate community of twin-tower advocates. About half of the 100 e-mail queries he received in the last week asked why the authority was not simply rebuilding two soaring monoliths.

He only answered once:

    If we were to start from scratch and develop a plan that called for rebuilding the twin towers, billions of dollars that already have been spent on design and engineering work, as well as hundreds of construction trade contracts, for all of the projects would be wasted. At a time when we are trying to move forward with construction and get this site rebuilt, all with funding that’s currently available, it wouldn’t be prudent to start the process all over again.
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« Reply #5 on: September 19, 2009, 04:56:54 am »

Among other questions Mr. Ward fielded were: Are you really going to close the PATH station on some weekends during construction? (Yes.) Are you really going to close Vesey Street? (Again, yes.) And, of course, those hardy perennials — why is it taking so long and when will it be finished?

To the last, Mr. Ward would vouch only for those projects that the authority is constructing: the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, 1 World Trade Center and the vehicle security center. “Between 2011 and 2014,” he answered.

Given the bleak prospect for commercial development, it is telling that Mr. Ward said nothing about the fates of Tower 2, Tower 3 and Tower 4 (to be developed by Silverstein Properties) or Tower 5 (under the authority’s control).

And given what seems to be strong public antipathy to the name “Freedom Tower,” it is also telling that he only used that name once in referring to Tower 1.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/why-quintuplets-instead-of-twins/
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« Reply #6 on: September 19, 2009, 05:00:51 am »

July 29, 2008, 9:29 am
Port Authority to Intensify Its Ground Zero Role
By David W. Dunlap


 Under renewed criticism and pressure to advance the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site, the chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey told his fellow commissioners on Monday that special monthly board meetings will begin in September to consider nothing but the issues posed at ground zero.

“I believe a project with this singular importance for the agency and region warrants even stronger and more regular engagement at the board level,” the chairman, Anthony R. Coscia, said in an e-mail message to the other commissioners.

He continued:

    The special meetings will create an opportunity for the board to give staff more policy direction regarding the rebuilding effort, provide an additional layer of board oversight, and ensure that the board is able to take action on W.T.C.-related items at a pace consistent with the desire for an accelerated construction schedule.
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« Reply #7 on: September 19, 2009, 05:01:28 am »

The World Trade Center board meetings will be held closer to the site than regular monthly meetings, which are conducted at the authority’s headquarters on Park Avenue South. Stephen Sigmund, a spokesman for the authority, said the meetings would be open to the public and that information on time and whereabouts would be posted on the Port Authority Web site.

Mr. Coscia concluded his e-mail message by saying, “The special meetings will enhance the transparency of board’s decision-making as it relates to the agency’s role in the rebuilding process.”
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« Reply #8 on: September 19, 2009, 05:01:48 am »



The Port Authority board plans to take a more active role in oversight at the World Trade Center site. (Photo: David W. Dunlap/The New York Times)
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« Reply #9 on: September 19, 2009, 05:07:31 am »

May 19, 2009, 4:14 pm
Civic Groups Weigh In on Ground Zero Impasse
By Charles V. Bagli


Some of the city’s largest civic groups jumped into the simmering dispute at ground zero Tuesday, saying that government should improve transportation networks downtown and not put any more money into the development of speculative office towers on the 16-acre site.

Their call comes in the midst of an impasse between the Port Authority, which owns the World Trade Center site, and the developer, Larry A. Silverstein, who is to build three skyscrapers there. On Thursday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the governors of New York and New Jersey, the Port Authority and Mr. Silverstein are scheduled to meet at Gracie Mansion to resolve the latest dispute in the long and tortured effort to rebuild the trade center.
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« Reply #10 on: September 19, 2009, 05:08:33 am »

Seven civic groups, including the Regional Plan Association, the Fiscal Policy Institute and the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, called on the mayor and the governors to ensure “that no additional public funds are used to subsidize office construction on the site.” The funds are needed more, the groups said, for the new $3.2 billion transportation hub there and a new rail passenger tunnel under the Hudson River.

“These investments will support new commercial activity,” the civic groups said in a letter [pdf] to the officials, “but it is the responsibility of the private sector to absorb the risk of new construction.”

Unable to obtain financing for the towers, Mr. Silverstein has asked the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to guarantee more than $3 billions in loans he needs to erect at least two of the towers, along Church Street, between Vesey and Liberty Streets. The authority, which is already building a large tower at the northwest corner of the site, balked. With office rents falling and vacancies rising downtown, it did not want to become involved with more speculative office space at a time when its own capital budget is threatened by sharply falling bridge and tunnel revenues.
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« Reply #11 on: September 19, 2009, 05:08:58 am »

 In a move that infuriated Mr. Silverstein, the authority offered to back only one of Mr. Silverstein’s towers with about $800 million. The authority said that it would help build Mr. Silverstein’s other two towers in the coming decades as demand for new office space increased, although the developer was free to move ahead at any time with private financing.

Janno Lieber, who oversees the trade center project for Mr. Silverstein, said in a statement Tuesday: “If, as the Port Authority apparently believes, the New York regional economy is permanently dead and buried, it’s hard to see how they can justify huge investments in the World Trade Center PATH hub, new tunnels and other facilities designed to serve expanded commuter populations.”

The two sides have not had any substantive talks in more than a month. On May 8, Sheldon Silver, the speaker of the State Assembly whose district includes downtown, called on the authority to help Mr. Silverstein begin construction on two of his towers. But Mr. Silver also said that Mr. Silverstein must invest some of his own money if he is to reap the profits from the buildings.
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« Reply #12 on: September 19, 2009, 05:09:23 am »

 Mayor Bloomberg immediately endorsed Mr. Silver’s initiative and asked all the parties to meet at Grace Mansion within a week, a notion that took Mr. Silverstein, the Port Authority and even Gov. David A. Paterson by surprise. The governor has said he wants the project to continue to move forward, but he is concerned about putting too many public dollars into speculative office development.

“There’s not enough money to build all the things that need to be done,” said Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association. “So now we need to make some choices. Our view is that the public investments should be in public infrastructure.”
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