The Freedom Tower

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had to pay nearly $15 million in late fees for not completing excavations for two building sites on time.
The New York Times reports the sites for two office towers have now been turned over to the developer, Silverstein Properties. The initial site prep was finished on a 3-acre, 80-foot deep pit and it took just 48 days longer than promised and the PA had to pay penalties of $300,000 a day.
A spokesman for the authority says the agency had planned to finish on Dec. 31, but there was just a six weeks delay in a five-year process that involved an enormously difficult building site and process.
The excavation, in an area called the East Bathtub, will be the sites of Tower 3 — at 175 Greenwich Street, which will have 2 million square feet of office space — and Tower 4, which will have 1.8 million square feet of office space at 150 Greenwich Street. Silverstein Properties, owned by the developer Larry A. Silverstein, is the leaseholder on the site and will build on it.
“We will be in full construction mode in a couple of days,” says Janno Lieber, the World Trade Center project director at Silverstein Properties. He told the Times there will be at least “50 workers and 30 pieces of heavy-duty construction equipment working on site” now that the excavations process is over.