by Lionel Bascom — February 18th, 2007 — 1 comment
This isn’t exactly a new idea but turning the Freedom Tower over to private enterprise might solve some problems bureaucracies like the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will certainly fumble. This notion has been put forth before and its being offered again, this time by Joe Mysak, a columnist for the Bloomberg News Service.
“It was a good idea for the Port Authority to get out of the real estate business back in the 1990s, when the idea of selling or leasing the World Trade Center was first discussed. It is an even better idea now,” Mysak says.
“Especially now, because there are so many investors looking to buy or lease public assets, things like toll roads, lotteries and airports, and manage them for a profit. States and localities from coast to coast are looking at their assets and considering which businesses to sell.
Surely developing real estate, and then acting as a landlord, isn’t exactly one of the core competencies of any municipal government. As more than one observer has pointed out, the original World Trade Center was a white elephant for years after it was opened in 1970.”
7:54 PM in Uncategorized, Ground Zero, Related Stories, Freedom Tower News
The new World Trade Center and Freedom Tower need management that will handle the operation of financial as well as public relations aspects in a secure manner. Hopefully, the real estate investors, whether a governmental agency or private enterprise, will consider the memorial feature of this complex as they ponder innovative ways to increase revenue and do so in a competent manner.
True, governmental agencies tend to have an abundance of bureaucratic procedures. Competency linked with creative intelligence will yield positive results, maintaining the Freedom Tower’s essence of liberty.
Jeanne · February 18th, 2007 at 9:46 pm