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Shopping Centers Today -> January 2004
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SILVERSTEIN WOWS N.Y. CONFERENCE WITH WTC PLAN
BY DEBRA HAZEL
NEW YORK — A new and expanded World Trade Center will rise again, vowed Larry Silverstein, leaseholder of the destroyed complex, in his keynote speech at ICSC’s New York Conference & Deal Making in New York City last month. More than 5,000 people attended the three-day conference, a record.
Silverstein acquired a 99-year lease on the 16-acre complex in July 2001, weeks before it was destroyed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“The magnitude of the disaster was impossible to contemplate,” Silverstein recalled. In addition to the human toll, the loss of the Trade Center’s 11 million square feet of offices eliminated one-third of the available class-A space in lower Manhattan, as well as 100,000 jobs that paid $48 billion in gross wages in 2000.
Now under construction is 7 World Trade Center, which will open at the end of 2005 or in early 2006. A $4.5 billion transit hub (funded by the federal government) will link 15 existing mass-transit lines via subterranean electric people movers.
Other components include a 1,776-foot-high Freedom Tower, museums, a performing arts center, a memorial garden, 600,000 square feet of retail space and 11 million square feet of offices in five buildings. Retail will be located in the new PATH terminal, and at the bases of four of the five office facilities.
The cornerstone for the Freedom Tower is to be laid Sept. 11 this year, with completion scheduled for late 2008 or early 2009. The PATH terminal will also begin construction this year, for a 2007 completion. Retail space, to include a department store and a combination of big boxes, small boutiques and restaurants, will be opening from 2008 through 2013.
The timing for much of the project is contingent on the outcome of a lawsuit between Silverstein and his insurance companies over whether the attack constituted two separate incidents, entitling Silverstein to two payouts of $3.5 billion each, or just one.
The rebuilt World Trade Center’s scheduled completion in 2013 would be within the 10-year time frame the 72-year-old Silverstein promised city and state officials.
“The rebirth of the Trade Center is the rebirth of Lower Manhattan,” Silverstein said. “Ultimately, the mission is to rebuild the Trade Center as spectacularly as the world’s best architects can design.”
 | Current Issue August 2008 |