The Freedom Tower

There’s a move afoot in Chicago once again to put up what would become the tallest building in America.
The city Plan Commission yesterday approved a proposal to build a skyscraper along Lake Michigan that would be 2,000 feet tall – the Chicago Spire. The proposal goes before the city zoning committee next week. If approved, the 150 story building would have 1,200 apartments. It would be taller than the Sears Tower, 1,451-feet tall and taller than the proposed Freedom Tower, 1,176 feet tall in New York.
But it would still be in the Second City, and even the tallest building in the world, the Taipei 101 Tower in Taiwan, 101 floor that rise 1,671 feet. A tower under construction in Dubai is expected to rise 2,300 feet with more than 160 floors – but it ain’t in New York, New York – the city so nice they named it twice.

Any past controversy or speculation over the significance of the Freedom Tower or whether it would attract tenants may have to take a back seat to reality.
Lower Manhattan is the fastest, revitalized neighborhood in New York City. Rents are up and vacancies are down. This boosts any prospects that the four office towers at ground zero, including the Freedom Tower will be fully occupied when it is completed.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey told USAToday it has talked to investors who want to buy into the (Freedom Tower) building.
“A building that only a year ago people were describing as everything from a high risk to a white elephant is now being viewed as a valuable property,” says Anthony Shorris, Port Authority executive director. No deals have been struck, he says.
“Office rents in lower Manhattan returned to pre-9/11 levels for the first time during the first quarter of 2007, according to a report from real estate agency Cushman & Wakefield. The newspaper says the vacancy rate for prime office space in the neighborhood fell to 6.3% for the first three months of the year from 12.5% in the first quarter of 2006.
This means space is rapidly disappearing so any vacancies will be seen as prime real estate, the view most people have of any real estate in New York that is vacant. Some things never change.

Images of more than 500 design and construction models of the World Trade Center in Manhattan will be available at the Skyscraper Museum through its VIV2 online archive.
Archrecord.construction.com says the photos and drawings were donated by the Twin Towers’ engineer, Leslie E. Robertson Associates.
“In the absence of the buildings, they are a unique record that allow architects and engineers to study their structure in detail,” says Carol Willis, the museum’s founder and director, the website said.
“Most of the slides were taken by Les himself over the course of construction with his special access to the site and, obviously, with his special eye and perspective.”
In addition to the World Trade Center materials, VIVA2 also presents images and drawings that relate to the construction of the Empire State Building. Willis says that the museum is now collecting materials to document development of the planned Freedom Tower, but adding them to the archive will require new funds. VIVA2 was created by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. It can be accessed through the museum’s Web site, www.skyscraper.org

A website called Glasssteeelandstone.com says the Freedom Tower will be one of the most important buildings of the early 21st century.
It takes on that significance because in its politics, “its symbolism, and for the reason it was built.
“The Freedom Tower is the replacement for what was once New York’s World Trade Center. In September 2001 terrorists destroyed several of the Center’s buildings, including the massive 110 -story twin towers. The stated reason for this action was to protest the United States’ support of the nation of Israel and its people. The terrorist attack only served to solidify the bond between the U.S. and Israel, and caused wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and the toppling of the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Thousands died when the twin tower fell, and millions were emotionally and psychologically scarred.
“The Freedom Tower is more than a real estate project. It is rehabilitation for those hurt by the terrorists and a way to heal the scar on a nation. Part of the healing process is new growth, which this tower represents. But it has been a painful process. The early designs were ridiculed. When the first cohesive plan came out of the pack it, too, found few of detractors. New Yorkers are notoriously cranky people and they took aim at the design. Most had forgotten, or were too young to remember, that the original twin towers were also the subject of much vitriol for their design and expense. It was only after those towers were taken away that the city realized it had grown to love its pair of white albatrosses. But detractors stalled the project for more than a year, adopted celebrity real estate mogul Donald Trump as their mouthpiece, and embarrassed the city and the nation by allowing the United Arab Emirates to begin work on what would become the world’s tallest tower while New Yorkers were busy sticking their thumbs in each other’s eyes. “
A mouthful, yes, but it is just as accurate.
The Freedom Tower is huge, its drama, its bigger than Broadway. Bigger than the last two World Wars. Its politics. Its make believe and real. Just like the Twin Towers. When I went to the Towers for any reason, it was like a trip to Disney Land, Disney World, even something as simple as riding the elevators to a routine Port Authority public hearing. It was the Magic Kingdom and the Freedom Tower will be even better.
Wait and see. It’s a spectacle that can be created only in New York.
The world revolves around purpose, intension and politics. The Freedom Tower is a function of all these things.

The remains of a woman who worked on the 97th Floor of a World Trade Center building and a passenger of one of the planes that slammed into the Twin Towers, have been identified.
The remains of Carol LaPlante have been positively identified through DNA evidence. LaPlante worked for Marsh and McLennan in 2001 when the World Trade Center was attacked. She was 59 years old and lived in Manhattan.
Workers sifting through debris from Ground Zero last week found 27 pieces of human remains at a “sifting site” in Brooklyn according to city officials. The victims identified include the LaPlante woman and a baggage handler who died aboard American Airlines Flight 11. Alberto Dominguez was a baggage handler for Qantas Airways in Sidney who was visiting the United States.
The remains weren’t found recently but they were identified last week through DNA analysis.

Sweetgum trees will be planted in the World Trade Center Memorial plaza.
The trees will be donated by horticulturists from Maryland.
Maryland officials are sending 31 trees that stand between 15 and 20 feet tall. The trees will be kept in a central New Jersey tree nursery until they stand 25 feet tall. They will be planted in a plaza around the Reflecting Absence memorial in 2009.  The designers of the memorial say the sweetgum trees were chosen because their leaves change from green to a bright red in September, the anniversary month of the September 11 attacks. The red foliage will symbolize the cycle of life from green to red.

Remains are still being found at Ground Zero.
The New York City medical examiner says authorities have found nine more remains from an access road at Ground Zero. The remains were found yesterday by workers sifting through materials in Brooklyn. The remains of at least six people have recently been identified by authorities while the remains of other 9/11 victims remain a mystery. The medical examiner says at least 1100 victims are still unidentified.
The remains of 128 firefighters remain unidentified. The Fire Department says one victim was identified recently but his family did not want his identify made public.

Speculators predicting the cost of the Freedom Tower will rise proportionately as the 1,776 foot skyscraper goes up are not exacctly rocket scientists or news men.
Businessweek.com is reporting that “observers are expressing doubts over the project’s total price tag, which seems poised to rise at a faster rate than the building itself.”
The Port Authority is saying the cost of construction so far fall “within planned-for contingencies common to projects of this scale,” a roughly 4 percent margin. The building’s total price tag is currently set at $2.88 billion. But many observers believe that the final number will rise far higher.”
The story is really a little silly, quoting a real estate expert and attorney who says the initial bids and cost estimates were low balled so the contractors bidding could win the job. He said ”initial bid numbers were virtually meaningless—unless construction companies agree to sign fixed-cost contracts, which seems unlikely. The problem, he explains, is that contractors often lowball their estimates to win projects and then file change orders and add other fees to make up the difference later.”
So, where’s the news?

Seven World Trade Center has been standing finished but empty for months with only one prospective tenant until a month ago … now there are several prospective occupants, including a Chinese real estate developer.
“It has been standing silently for over a year, lurking like a giant in the shadows, visibly elusive and often indistinguishable from the clear blue sky behind it. The glass façade of Seven World Trade Center was complete several months ago, marking the end of external growth and the inception of a furious internal incubation period that will culminate in the development of the first 42 tenant floors to reopen at Ground Zero,” says Project Rebirth.
A flurry of publicity may have sparked a renewed interest in occupying the building.
“Like other World Trade Center buildings to come, Seven World Trade Center is situated atop a budding transportation epicenter, which will mark the crossroads of New York City and New Jersey rail transit networks. Pedestrian corridors will reunite the financial district with TriBeCa (the “Triangle Below Canal Street”), its long lost neighbor to the north and which sits at the doorstep of the new tower,” Project Rebirth said.
In addition to being the first building completed, 7 World Trade will serve as a model for many state-of-the-art engineering technologies to be used throughout the rebuilding project, including:
Extra-strong fireproofing
Biological and chemical filters in the air supply system
Concrete-encased stair and elevator cores
Extra-wide, pressurized stairs
Low-level emergency lighting
Concrete protection for sprinklers Interconnected exits
Direct exit to the street from tower stairs
Structurally reinforced columns
Blast-resistant glazing

A financial ratings firm will be taking up more office space it leases at 7 World Trade Center.
Moody’s Corporation will be occupying 80,0000 more square feet than originally planned, leasing a total of 670,000 square feet at the new World Trade Center building.
There has always been speculation over who would occupy the reconstructed buildings at Ground Zero or whether or not the buildings could attract enough paying tenants to revive the World Trade Center as the commerce hub it once was before the 9/11 attack.
Moody’s will move into the Ground Zero building later this year.
Things in general are looking up at Ground Zero.
Seven World Trade Center has other confirmed tenants, including ABN AMRO, a firm that will be leasing 140,000 square feet in 2008. Ameriprise Financial moved into the buiilding last June. Darby & Carby will be taking over 80,000 square feet by May.