The Freedom Tower

The Wall Street crisis hitting the heart of the city’s financial district should slow construction of its biggest commercial real estate projects, the Associated Press says, including the World Trade Center and Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. Quoting real estate experts the wire service moved a story saying that:

“Basically, people are afraid,” said Tom Geurts, a professor at New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate. “Although a project could be profitable, they are afraid to put their money in it because they don’t know what is going to happen.”

In the short term, businesses in partnership with Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and American International Group Inc., which had over $50 billion invested in commercial real estate around the country, had their deals threatened. Lehman and AIG were investors in many large real estate deals.

Barclays PLC’s takeover of Lehman’s assets included the midtown office building it owned and will keep many of the employees in the skyscraper, valued at $1.7 billion. Lehman bought the tower earlier this decade after leaving lower Manhattan in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

“That’s very good news, because otherwise 10,000 people would have been out of work and we would have had to deal with that. And we would have had another million square feet of office space on the market,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Wednesday. “This deal means that the building stays full.”

You may have seen recent news reports claiming that the Memorial & Museum costs have risen, according to the National911memorial.org  The organization says these reports are misleading and inaccurately combine costs that are unrelated to the construction budget for the project.”We have already secured the funding for the construction of the Memorial, Museum, and Pavilion.  The current cost estimates for the project, which are based on the 2011 opening date, fall within the available funds as 80% of the construction contracts have already been bid out or awarded.

What is true in these articles is that the Memorial must be completed in time for the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.  Keeping the construction on schedule is the single best way to contain costs.  The Memorial & Museum expects, as part of the Port Authority’s WTC site analysis, for changes and commitments to be made that will allow for the Memorial to be delivered in 2011 in a way that we will be proud to share with the world.”

For all the scenes of cranes at work at ground zero in New York City, the site is still a giant, lifeless crater seven years after two hijacked airplanes destroyed the twin towers, according to National Public Radio and the producers of All Things Considered.

“Why is there nothing finished at this point?

Paul Goldberger, architecture critic for The New Yorker magazine, blames the number of stakeholders involved in the project.

“There were simply too many people with too many different interests. And nobody could really run the show. There was no real vision or leadership there,” Goldberger says.

Among those at the planning table are the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which built the World Trade Center, as well as Larry Silverstein, the private developer who leased the twin towers.

New York then-Gov. George Pataki, who was in charge on Sept. 11, 2001, also gave the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. a seat.

The new Freedom Tower project is a commercial effort that includes a memorial and some cultural facilities.

Except on paper, the project has not visibly taken shape.”

Architect Craig Dykers (of Norwegian-based design firm Snøhetta ) was joined by Mayor Bloomberg and other officials at 7 World Trade Center this morning to unveil new renderings for a downsized World Trade Center memorial museum and pavilion at the site of the former twin towers. The Gothamist reports that “the $80 million polygonal pavilion is being financed by New York State. It will range in height from 57 to 72 feet and have about 40,000 square feet to use for public programs and museum exhibitions intended to “tell the story of the events of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993.”

Located between the waterfalls and reflecting pools marking the towers’ location, and surrounded by a grove of oak trees that will mature to a height of approximately 50 feet, the pavilion will serve as the gateway into the underground galleries. One of the most striking aspects of the pavilion is its glass and steel atrium along the northwest corner, where two iconic “tridents” salvaged from base of the twin towers will be placed. According to Snøhetta, the tridents will “create an immediate visual reference to the distinctive ‘Gothic arch’ motif of the twin towers. And, in their re-erection at the site, they will convey strength, fortitude, resilience, survival and hope.”

New York Magazine and the Daily News brings us our first glimpse of what the new, reassessed costs of the World Trade Center rebuilding might be. The September 11 memorial and museum, originally priced at $610 million, is now estimated at over $1 billion — a 65 percent increase. It also won’t be ready until 2013 or 2014, well after the tenth anniversary of the attacks, as had orginally been promised.
Some aging survivors and relatives are worried they won’t live to see the day they can celebrate the opening of the memorial. But the worst part is that there’s likely to be a lot more bad news coming from the Port Authority going into the fall, as they reevaluate their schedules and budgets. This is just the beginning.

The New York Observer says that “HSBC employees should soon, from their aerie atop 7 World Trade Center, be able to peer down at the morass of construction at the city-and-state controlled ground zero below.
The massive bank is poised to become landlord Larry Silverstein’s newest tenant at 7 World Trade. Now that HSBC has a lease pending on the 52-story tower’s top seven floors—comprising 280,000 square feet of the tower’s 1.7 million—7 World Trade is nearly full.
A knowledgeable source told us that a lease is indeed “out,” as commercial real estate’s insufferable jargon would have it, meaning that a lease exists, HSBC has a copy and its execs are eyeing the dotted line. The source would not reveal the rent per square foot, but suggested that the top few floors would command higher prices, perhaps in the mid $90s a square foot, and the lower floors would go for somewhere in the mid $70s or $80s. Of course, those face values don’t take into account any concessions that Silverstein Properties might offer, like free months of rent and build-out allowances.
Mr. Silverstein opened 7 World Trade to much fanfare in early 2006. He said at the time to whoever would listen that he, as a private developer, had rebuilt faster than the government-involved World Trade Center site across Greenwich Street from his new tower. Now, nearly three years on, Mr. Silverstein can continue to gloat, if he’s so inclined, at having a prime financial tenant gobble the last big space at 7 World Trade while ground zero’s various stakeholders (including Mr. Silverstein) continue to triangulate.
HSBC’s New York headquarters are now housed in the 500,000-square-foot scalloped, glass tower that wraps around the Knox Building at 452 Fifth Avenue, between 39th and 40th streets.
Linda Recupero, a spokeswoman for “the world’s local bank,” would only give us one of those no-comment comments: “We regularly review our space requirements, as we are doing currently, but have no further comment to make at this time.”
Mr. Silverstein’s folks also wouldn’t comment.”

now “a massive, rectangular pit crammed with construction crews, blasting and drilling equipment, and the skeletal beginnings of a handful of buildings. But the enterprise was supposed to be much further along by now. The centerpiece of the 16-acre site in lower Manhattan, the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower, originally was scheduled to be completed in 2006, but that building just rose above ground level this past spring. Of the six office buildings planned for the area, one 52-story building across the street from the main site has been completed, but five other buildings are not even close. “At least 15 fundamental issues critical to the overall project”—including basic transportation and security needs—remain unresolved, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, said in a recent report. Officials admit that they’re chagrined at the lack of progress. “It’s time for this international embarrassment to end,” says Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

What’s taking so long?
The project has become a multibillion-dollar political football, pitting numerous agencies and interest groups against one another—each with its own agenda. Many critics say the blame begins with former New York Gov. George Pataki, who in the aftermath of 9/11 made big promises—and demanded tight design schedules—that proved wildly unrealistic. But the creation of “Pataki’s Pit,” as it has been dubbed, had no shortage of helpers. Among those involved are the Port Authority; 19 local, state, and federal agencies; two developers; 33 designers, architects, and consultants; and more than 100 building contractors. Efforts to respect the wishes of victims’ families, including their desire to retain the footprints of the original towers, have also contributed to delays. Then there are the extraordinary construction challenges posed by the site, which Port Authority Executive Director Chris Ward calls “as complex as any in the world…”

New York’s Freedom Tower is the symbol of American resilience after the mayhem of September 11 when terrorists destroyed the World Trade Centre and attacked the Pentagon, says Theage.com.au.

“And it’s also symbolic that a foreigner, Melbourne-born structural engineer Marc Colella has been given the responsibility of making sure the tower stays standing.

“Don’t think this is just an event that happened on American soil,” he says.

Mr Colella was initially surprised that such an emotionally charged project was given to an outsider.

While the opportunity to lead the project came “completely out of the blue”, hard work, perseverance “and a bit of luck” gave the 35-year-old the chance to showcase his talent.

Mr Colella visited Monash University, his former alma mater, recently for a presentation on the technical aspects of the highest-profile building site in the world.

The Freedom Tower, also known as Tower 1, will be 105 storeys tall, the same height as the Twin Towers. But a 120-metre spire that will house communication equipment pushes the building’s height to a symbolic level: 1776 feet, for the year of America’s declaration of independence.

“Americans are big on their symbolism,” says Mr Colella.

Perhaps the ultimate symbolic hope was to have the tower finished on September 11, 2011, but Mr Colella says “that’s just not gonna happen”.

The tower is expected to be completed by late 2012.

But it’s not just symbolism that Mr Colella has had to consider. After living in New York for 61/2 years, he says, “You’ve got to manage the way you’re perceived a lot more”.

“You have to put yourself forward in the right manner, with the right intentions. In New York, you’ve got to get that respect, or else they just bury you.”

While he admits there is tremendous pressure on the Freedom Tower project, Mr Colella says “it’s the Aussie way” to rise to a challenge.

“It’s more than just an engineering site. There are a lot of agencies and interests involved.

“The emotional and political implications complicate matters even further. You have to divorce yourself from emotion and treat this just like any other project.”

theage.com.au

Michael Goodwin says New York is usually one tough town, but it’s hard to imagine a softer civic touch than the one that greeted the admission last week that Ground Zero is a mess, the New York Daily News writer says. “When, after nearly seven years of false starts and promises, officials finally admitted that everything is hopelessly behind schedule and over budget, New Yorkers’ general reaction was to applaud the honesty and turn the channel.Don’t get me wrong, I like honesty from my government as much as the next sucker. But we shouldn’t confuse the seven-year-itch for confession with a solution for what ails Ground Zero. And therein lies the real outrage of the downtown disaster - officials still don’t have a real plan to fix it.

Even worse, they don’t seem to know what’s wrong. Or maybe they can’t bring themselves to be quite that honest.

If they did, they’d have to confess to original sin. They’d have to admit they’ve forgotten the fundamental meaning of 9/11 and that the memorial to those who died in the worst attack ever carried out on American soil should have been the first thing built.

Rudy Giuliani perfectly described the right approach in his farewell address as mayor. With the fires still smoldering, Giuliani, speaking from nearby St. Paul’s Chapel on Dec. 27, 2001, called Ground Zero ‘holy” and “hallowed” and declared, “we shouldn’t think about this site right behind us as a site for economic development.’ “

Construction of skyscrapers and an underground transport hub to replace the World Trade Center towers destroyed in the September 11 terror attacks will be delayed for years and cost far more than planned, New York officials said Monday.According to AFP, the schedule and cost of the ambitious project, including a landmark Liberty Tower, other ultramodern skyscrapers and a museum, “face significant delays and cost overruns,” said Chris Ward, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site land.

“While significant progress has been made, the schedule and cost estimates of the rebuilding effort that have been communicated to the public are not realistic,” he added in a briefing about the setbacks.

A new target completion date was not released, Ward said, as setting a fresh forecast before key issues were resolved “would only create a new set of commitments and expectations that are unrealistic.”

Earlier Monday The Wall Street Journal reported the project will be delayed from one to three years and run three billion dollars over its 15-billion-dollar budget.

“Anyone giving you dates and budgets today would have to have a crystal ball,” Port Authority spokesman Stephen Sigmund told the paper, calling its figures overly pessimistic.

The delays mean the so-called “ground zero” project will not be completed by 2011, the symbolic date of the 10th anniversary of the terror strikes on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania claimed by Al-Qaeda.

Ward pointed to 15 “fundamental issues” critical to the project and its construction which had yet to be resolved, and said there needed to be a “more efficient, centralized decision-making structure” to make final decisions on the project.

Officials said work on the site involves 19 state agencies, 101 different construction companies or subcontractors, and 33 different designers, architects and builders.

New York Governor David Paterson said he wanted to focus less on what has gone wrong in the process and more on providing an adequate memorial to honor those who died in the attacks.

“I am not interested in assigning blame. Instead, I am interested in fixing the problem so we can move forward,” Paterson said.

“I believe that the victims’ families deserve a memorial that is equal to the sacrifice and heroism displayed on that day and I believe that the City of New York deserves a reinvigorated site that secures our position as the economic capital of the world.”

The developer of the World Trade Center site has dismissed suggestions that people would be scared to occupy the skyscrapers that will replace the fallen twin towers.

Envisaged as a demonstration of New York’s unity and resilience, the reconstruction of the site where the trade center’s twin towers were destroyed on September 11, 2001, became a byword for discord and disorder.

After a multitude of delays caused by the clash of multiple vested interests, construction of the design’s centerpiece skyscraper — the 1,776 foot (541-meter) Freedom Tower — finally began in April 2006.

As well as the Freedom Tower, which will contain 241,548 square meters (2.6 million square feet) of office space, Silverstein Properties will build three other high-rise buildings at the site with a combined office space of 575,999 square meters (6.2 million square feet).

Some real estate experts have predicted the space will be hard to fill, with memories of the 9/11 attack making too many people reluctant to work in skyscrapers on the same site.