World Trade Center

Location: This is a horribly anxious time to be in New York real estate, especially if you’re one of the city’s biggest builders. What keeps you up at night?

Mr. Sciame: I like to say that I sleep like a baby: I sleep for two hours and I cry for two hours. Only kidding. … Any major builder in this town in 2008 is having a very good year. And we’re having a very good year.

 

How is that possible? It’s been incredibly unsteady; apartments are going unsold.

It has been, but as the builder, we are building that building, and the apartments that you’re trying to sell have been paid for … which is why my year has been good.  read more »

Missing from today's new World Trade Center timetable was any mention of the schedules for the planned 6.2 million square feet of office space in developer Larry Silverstein's planned three towers at the site.

The response of the mayor and the Port Authority's executive director, Chris Ward: The market will decide that, but the infrastructure will be in place.

"The market will respond as it needs to respond," Mr. Ward said at a press conference with Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson. "We will have available those sites and those foundations to Larry's team to meet the market."

In his long-term lease with the Port Authority, Mr. Silverstein is required to complete his buildings by 2013. Should he not finish any individual building by its required completion date, he would be in default of his lease, and the Port Authority could claim all three buildings.  read more »

Target dates at the World Trade Center have been moved by months and years for the more than $16 billion project, with the target end-date for the Port Authority to finish all of the site's components by the end of 2013, the agency announced today.

Delays have been known publicly for months, and since June the Port Authority, which owns the site, has been working to resolve about 15 outstanding issues in order to set a new public schedule and budget for the project.  read more »

The Port Authority is slated to recommend a closure of the No. 1 train south of Chambers Street for a series of months, likely during the summer, according to multiple people familiar with the agency's plans.

The recommendation is expected to be part of the Port Authority's report on dates and budgets, which will likely announce the rebuilding effort is facing around $1.7 billion in cost overruns.

The closure would not be unprecedented, as the M.T.A. has closed the train for many weekends south of Chambers Street to help construction efforts, running shuttle buses between South Ferry and Chambers. But the length of the closure would be certain to frustrate commuters from Staten Island and could cause complications with the service on the 1/2/3 lines.  read more »

In the first weeks of 2007, the two new state officials responsible for Lower Manhattan’s redevelopment were called to a downtown meeting on risks regarding the World Trade Center rebuilding. In the final months of the Pataki administration, the city- and state-run Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center had undertaken an analysis to highlight potential roadblocks at the World Trade Center site, and with new officials at the helm, a briefing seemed in order.

The officials—the eventual chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, Avi Schick, and the Port Authority’s executive director, Tony Shorris, along with Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff from the city—arrived at the 29th floor, LMCCC’s headquarters, and sat to watch a PowerPoint with a less than optimistic theme.  read more »

As the Port Authority gears up for its big bare-all report Thursday on World Trade Center dates and costs, the price tag of the site stands to rise significantly.

According to numerous people familiar with discussions, the Port Authority is planning to announce the total amount in overruns is about $1.7 billion for the whole site. The amount presents the public sector with a large gap to fill in a time of strained budgets; however, the dollar figure is not quite as cataclysmic as early reports suggested, which put the gap at as much as $3 billion.

The overruns apply to the public sector portion of the site, which includes the Freedom Tower, the Santiago Calatrava-designed PATH hub, the common infrastructure, the vehicle screening center, the memorial, and the museum (but not the three Larry Silverstein-built towers).  read more »

Here's Mayor Bloomberg on his Friday morning radio show with John Gambling on the World Trade Center and the Port Authority's commitment to open the memorial by Sept. 11, 2011:

We all agree that the critical thing is that we have to have on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 the Memorial built with people being able to get to it--the platform, the water cascading down, the trees, the names. The museum underground can take a little bit longer and it will just because of the complexity of the problem. ... The governor and I have both said to [Port Authority executive director Chris Ward] we want the Port to guarantee any cost overruns over that, because otherwise you don't have any confidence they will, but you have to give them an economic incentive.

 read more »

With a report due in just one week that sets new timetables for the World Trade Center redevelopment, a decision is near on one of the most complex--and controversial--elements at the site, the multibillion dollar PATH hub.

The Santiago Calatrava-designed station has been a massive headache for officials and engineers since at least early 2007, when it became clear that the design was too costly given its $2.1 billion budget and could delay multiple other elements, including the memorial, at the interconnected site given the central placement of the station. In recent months, as the Port Authority has sought to bring in new timetables, a decision on what to do with the PATH station has been at the center of discussion.  read more »

Port Authority officials rushing to create a comprehensive report on the World Trade Center redevelopment by the end of the month are getting a small reprieve. The report, which is expected to have a new timetable for the site's completion and a new (higher) price tag, was once slated for issuance Sept. 29 but is now due to be released Oct. 2.

The reason, according to a Port Authority spokesman: Rosh Hashanah, which runs Sept. 29 - Oct. 1.

On the day prior to the seventh anniversary of New York’s darkest moment, Mayor Bloomberg penned an impassioned plea in the Wall Street Journal calling for more accountability and action at the terminally delayed World Trade Center site.

Commendable as the op-ed was, it’s possible that the mayor engaged in a bit of hyperbole to make his case. The offending passage:

Today, Lower Manhattan is the fastest-growing residential neighborhood in the country, bustling morning, noon and night. But the rebirth of Lower Manhattan will not be complete as long as Ground Zero remains an open wound.

But is the growth part true? No doubt Mr.  read more »

Former Governor George Pataki has been in something of a cocoon for the past 20 months, staying far away from the public spotlight. But last week at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, he emerged, mostly as a surrogate for Senator John McCain who gave speeches at delegation breakfasts and generally stayed away from New York political issues.

But on the issue of the World Trade Center redevelopment, Mr. Pataki was direct. Speaking to a small gathering of reporters, he responded to a question about whether current delays at the World Trade Center came as a result of mistakes in his administration.  read more »

With The Times giving details today on the changes being considered to the Santiago Calatrava-designed PATH hub, we caught up with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver out at the Democratic National Convention in Denver to get his reaction to the news that the Port Authority may put columns in the signature main hall of the station, which was to be open.

Mr. Silver did not take a firm position either way, but signaled openness to scaling back the aesthetics of the planned iconic station.

"Obviously, the functional purpose of it is still important, and we ought to watch that we get what's going on there as quickly as possible, get it moving," he said.  read more »

"I would say that this has probably been the greatest planning fiasco in the history of the world."

That's Wall Street Journal architecture critic Ada Louis Huxtable's blistering take on the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site, now about to enter its eighth year. No one is spared in the invective.

"When did all of these infighting factions become benign 'stakeholders,' with equal rights, right or wrong? And when did those stakeholders cease to be recognized as special interests, each with its own self-directed agenda?"

If only there'd been better planning instead of so much self-interested grandstanding. If only there'd been an Edward Logue, the planner behind the South Bronx, New Haven and Boston redevelopments of yore.

"The critical factor that did Ground Zero in was the denial of the professional planning role essential to coordinate and execute an effort of this magnitude."

From the Associated Press:

As hundreds of firefighters bowed their heads in prayer, a cross made out of steel from the World Trade Center was dedicated Sunday near where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into the ground on Sept. 11.

The 2-ton, 14-foot high cross sits on a concrete base shaped like the Pentagon at the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Co., just a few miles from where the plane crashed into a field. The cross made a 311-mile journey from Brooklyn on Saturday, accompanied by hundreds of motorcyclists, many of them current or retired New York firefighters.

A major engineering firm retained for numerous jobs at the World Trade Center site is in talks to acquire a company run by the Port Authority commissioner most closely involved with the site’s redevelopment.

The commissioner, Anthony Sartor, chairs the Port Authority’s World Trade Center subcommittee and is president of KeySpan Services, which controls Paulus, Sokolowski & Sartor, an engineering firm that is a subsidiary of National Grid. Engineering and architectural giant STV Incorporated, which has contracts with the Port Authority for the Freedom Tower and the multibillion-dollar PATH hub, is exploring a potential acquisition of Mr. Sartor’s company, known as PS&S.  read more »

The governing board of the Port Authority will increase its oversight of World Trade Center development, as board chairman Anthony Coscia is calling for new monthly meetings devoted to monitoring progress at the site.

Based on a memo he sent to the other board members today, the meetings will allow for monthly updates on cost and schedules, drawing a sharp contrast with years past (the first revision of dates and cost since 2006 is slated to be delivered in September).

The new meetings, to be held near the site, "will create an opportunity for the Board to give staff more policy direction regarding the rebuilding effort," Mr.  read more »

As expected, the Port Authority last week approved the land deal with St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church to allow the Port to use the church's Ground Zero land and build a vehicle security center below.

The bi-state agency agreed to give the church $20 million ($10 million is supposed to come from JPMorgan Chase for its planned adjacent building, though we'll see if that tower ever happens), along with up to $40 million for infrastructure. The church will get a significantly larger lot than it had prior to September 11, 2001, at 8,100 square feet.

Release below.  read more »

The NYPD will oversee security at the new World Trade Center, as the city and the Port Authority have reached an agreement on the structure of a security plan at the 16-acre site.

The agreement, announced today, leaves NYPD in charge of security at the vast majority of the site, a role the Port Authority Police Department currently has (the move has angered members of the Port Authority police). The Port Authority would control security at the PATH hub at the site, but the NYPD would have access to that space, according to a memorandum of understanding between the city and the Port Authority made public today.  read more »

The Port Authority has reached a tentative land deal with St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at ground zero, removing a hurdle to the construction of a vehicle security center in the new World Trade Center, according to a Port Authority official. The deal is expected to come before the agency's board for approval today.

A dispute over the church's land, which sits south of Liberty Street across from ground zero, was highlighted in a Port Authority report last month as one of more than a dozen potential or impending major hurdles at the World Trade Center site.

In the agreement, the Port Authority would pay $20 million to the church, giving it a more than 8,000-square-foot site on which to build.  read more »

With uncertainties abounding since last week’s acknowledgement that the World Trade Center redevelopment is behind schedule and overbudget, much talk at last night’s mega-Lower Manhattan community meeting centered around the site’s 8-acre memorial, referred to repeatedly as “the heart” of the project.

The meeting was designed to give the public a chance to talk with the major stakeholders in the redevelopment; attendees included State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Councilman David Yassky and State Senator Martin Connor. The memorial took center stage.

The memorial and interior museum was once slated for completion in 2009, but now the Port Authority said it will not be finished by the 10th anniversary of the attacks in September 2011.  read more »

Until the end of last month, Governor David Paterson had little connection in the public’s mind with the World Trade Center site. Unlike his predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, he did not loudly spout off in a campaign about mismanagement downtown; and unlike former Governor George Pataki, he was not involved in the planning process that led to the design for the site.

But all that changed June 30, when Mr. Paterson’s new executive director at the Port Authority, Christopher Ward, delivered—at his boss’ request—a candid report outlining a list of challenges at the site in need of resolution, warning of a need for more money, more coordination and more time to finish.  read more »

Port Authority executive director Chris Ward today presented his candid review of the outstanding challenges at the World Trade Center site, tossing out the existing timetables and listing more than a dozen unresolved issues that could add delays.

Mr. Ward’s announcement, as expected, did not outline any specific dates but rather the new director pledged to come back in September with a revised plan for the site [see a PDF of the report here].

The biggest challenge for the agency is the PATH hub, a project budgeted at $2.5 billion with overruns. The project, which encompasses aspects unrelated to PATH such as retail and costly infrastructure for the broader World Trade Center site, is highly unlikely to fit within that budget.  read more »

The Port Authority is expected to deliver its report about World Trade Center timetables and budgets Monday, and the situation looks so grim that the agency appears as though it will throw out the existing dates without setting a new timetable, at least for now, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

The Port Authority’s initial analysis found that the projects under the agency's control—the PATH hub, the memorial, the Freedom Tower—stand to be delivered years behind schedule and substantially over budget. The agency wants more time to do further analysis, and could set dates at a later time, people briefed on the matter said.  read more »

Governor Paterson today announced an audit of the schedules and budgets at the World Trade Center site, with his new Port Authority director Chris Ward due to report back by the end of June.

The review, announced two hours after the Port Authority acknowledged it is facing a two-month delay on the site for Tower 2, is already underway at the bi-state agency, as the Paterson administration seems eager to shed any blame for the unrealistic timetables set in the Pataki era.

From a letter from Mr. Paterson to Mr. Ward:

The rebuilding of the World Trade Center site must encompass clear and achievable timelines and budget goals that must be met at every step of the way. Furthermore, the stakeholders and the public must be kept up to date on progress in meeting the timetables and budgets as we move forward.

 read more »

The Port Authority today acknowledged that it will be late in delivering a key portion of the World Trade Center site to developer Larry Silverstein, owing him millions in penalties.

The bi-state agency said it will take until August to turn over the site for Tower 2, a space being excavated that it is obligated to turn over by July 1. The Port Authority will owe Mr. Silverstein $300,000 a day for each day that the site is late, the same penalty it faced when it missed a Jan. 1 deadline for the site for Towers 3 and 4, eventually owing more than $12 million.

In a statement, the Port Authority noted that the agency will now not be paying an incentive of between $8 million and $14 million that it was prepared to pay its contractors had they finished on time.  read more »

Construction of various projects at the World Trade Center site, including the Freedom Tower and the September 11 Memorial, could be delayed as the Paterson administration reexamines the shifting reality of the site’s construction budgets and timetables that were set by the Pataki administration.

Christopher Ward, the new executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the site’s landlord, is moving forward with an analysis of construction completion dates and other issues. He plans to publicly address the situation as soon as the next few weeks.  read more »

The Wall Street Journal reports today that Merrill Lynch is in talks once again to move its headquarters to one of Larry Silverstein’s towers at the World Trade Center site, with the Port Authority, which owns the site, expected to discuss the matter at today’s board meeting.  read more »

Governor Paterson indicated he would re-examine the rebuilding effort at the World Trade Center site, where the billions of dollars of projects faced years of delays before moving into the construction phase in the past year and a half.

“We have to go back and revisit the issue at Ground Zero,” Mr. Paterson said at a breakfast this morning hosted by the Association for a Better New York. “As we stand right now, it will be September 11 of 2011 before anything is actually built, and estimates are that that may be two or three years off. We can do better than that, because Ground Zero should always be a symbol of our resilience and an engine of our downtown economy.”

The implications of this statement--and what it means to "revisit" the issues there--are not entirely clear as construction on the Freedom Tower’s foundation is already well underway (we bumped into its architect, David Childs, this afternoon, who said construction is going well), as is sub-grade work on the PATH station, and the memorial. Developer Larry Silverstein recently started early work on two of his three towers for the site, too.  read more »

A global credit crunch and looming national recession have turned a once bustling market for commercial real estate on its head, as the level of leasing and sales within Manhattan has plummeted.

But could the dour economy, by putting a damper on proposed office building development, actually turn out to benefit the future World Trade Center towers?

Such a scenario now seems plausible, real estate professionals say, given recent local history, when booming job growth and economic expansion have tended to follow a recession by only a few years.  read more »

Seven weeks after he had hoped to start construction, Larry Silverstein is ready to build at Ground Zero, as the Port Authority announced today it has finished excavations and cleared space for World Trade Center Towers 3 and 4.

The Port Authority missed its deadline of Jan. 1 to turn over the site to Silverstein Properties, and has owed $300,000 a day to the developer since, an amount that now exceeds $14 million. However, the cost is offset some, as the agency has said it offered a $10 million incentive to its contractors to finish before the deadline.

Completion of the towers is expected for 2011.  read more »

With the hole at Ground Zero gradually filling in, the Port Authority is putting out its feelers for a company to develop and manage a two-floor restaurant on the 100th and 101st floors of the 102-story Freedom Tower.

Tomorrow the Port Authority expects to issue a request for expression of interest (RFEI) for the restaurant, seeking early, nonbinding bids from developers.  read more »

The Port Authority has finalized a deal with the mall-operating giant Westfield Group to develop and operate the 488,000 square feet of retail planned for the World Trade Center site. The group, now in a joint venture with the Port Authority, will control retail both above ground and below, both in transit-related concourses and in Larry Silverstein’s three towers.

The total cost of developing the retail is estimated to cost $1.45 billion, with Westfield paying $625 million, according to the Port Authority.  read more »

Almost as if to say, “Really—we aren’t upset,” Silverstein Properties has issued an addendum to its earlier statement on the Port Authority’s excavation delays for Towers 3 and 4 at the World Trade Center site, showering even more praise on the Port Authority.  read more »

The Port Authority acknowledged today that it will miss its deadline of Jan. 1, 2008 to finish up excavations on the bathtub for World Trade Center Towers 3 and 4, thereby owing developer Larry Silverstein more than $12 million in delay penalties given the agency’s current timeline.

The Port Authority will owe Silverstein Properties $300,000 for every day until the excavations are done, and in a statement, the agency said that the bathtub would be ready for complete handover to Mr. Silverstein in about two to four weeks after mid-January (when they expect to finish excavations for Tower 4).

The Port Authority, which owns the World Trade Center site and is leasing the land for Towers 2, 3, and 4 to Silverstein, said in the statement that the hit from the penalties will in part be passed along to its contractors.

Silverstein, in a statement, said it will begin “pre-construction activities” as the firm waits on the Port.

Release after the jump.

   read more »

The contracts for the foundations of two World Trade Center towers have been awarded, Silverstein Properties announced today, as developer Larry Silverstein revs his engines before taking control of the site at the start of next year.

The contracts, totaling about $40 million, are fairly minimal given the approximately $7 billion cost of the three Silverstein towers on the site, though the contracts mark one of the first construction-related actions by Mr. Silverstein.

Press release after the jump.  read more »

Larry Silverstein was on Nightline last night. The ABC News program depicted the World Trade Center developer as a striding, fast-talking, somewhat stubborn visionary "right out of central casting" who was "always, always selling." A pop-up video of the segment can be seen here.  

Silverstein project gets Greenwich Street address, as Trade Centers rise.  read more »

Larry Silverstein thinks JP Morgan Chase’s decision to move downtown is “tremendous.”

His full statement: “JPMorgan Chase is a tremendous addition to the new Downtown. Like the Goldman Sachs headquarters and the speedy lease-up of 7 World Trade Center, it proves again that Downtown has re-emerged as the financial capital of the world.”

Larry Silverstein has filled two-thirds of 7 World Trade Center. Silverstein Properties announced on Tuesday that DRW Trading has leased 8,568 square feet on the 34th floor. The company should be moved in by August.

Also, Silverstein Properties announces Moody's will take an extra 80,000 square feet in addition to the 590,000 they already signed on for. Steve Cuozzo of The Post reported that one a few weeks ago.

That means 1.1 million square feet is taken and roughly another 500,000 to go for the city's most valuable downtown office building.

Full-release after the jump.  read more »

- John Koblin

Location: You have a number of publicly funded—or at least very public—projects: the Fre  read more »

Brit Richard Rogers, who will design Tower 3 at the World Trade Center site, has won the Pritzker Prize, the top honor in architecture. As The Times notes, Mr. Rogers has been busy as of late in New York, and not just in lower Manhattan:

[He] now has four projects under way in the city: an expanded Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Manhattan's Far West Side; a tower at the World Trade Center site; a complex at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, Queens; and a redesign of the East River waterfront.

- Tom Acitelli

Rudy Giuliani, among others, will surely be watching closely when Michael Bloomberg goes to DC tomorrow to discuss the findings of a mayoral panel on the health problems of first responders and residents near the World Trade Center.

This afternoon, Bloomberg sent a letter[pdf] to members of Congress previewing his panel's findings:

"On Wednesday, I will explain what the Panel found: that many first responders, business owners, New York City residents, and workers and volunteers from all 50 states who dedicated long hours toward the recovery effort, have gotten sick with asthma, other respiratory problems, and mental illness such as post-traumatic stress disorder."

-- Azi Paybarah

Denis Dercourt’s The Page Turner (La Tourneuse de Pages), from a screenplay by Mr.  read more »