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NY Gov Says WTC site faces delays, asks owner for 2nd look

6/11/2008, 8:26 p.m. ET
By AMY WESTFELDT
The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Gov. David Paterson on Wednesday said the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site is over budget and behind schedule, and he ordered the site’s owner to come up with a realistic plan by the end of the month to rebuild it.

“It has become clear that the overall project faces likely delays and cost overruns,” Paterson wrote of 6-year-old plans to build five skyscrapers, a Sept. 11, 2001, memorial, a transit hub and a performing arts center on the 16-acre site.

Paterson asked Chris Ward, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, to determine by June 30 if the latest schedules and budgets “are reliable and achievable.” The agency owns the lower Manhattan site.

“Accountability means demanding results and accepting responsibility, and that is what we must do if we want to recapture public confidence,” the governor said.

Paterson is the third governor to demand a quicker pace for a project that has been slowed by political wrangling, passionate arguments about the site’s symbolism, rising construction costs and the logistics of building so much at once on such a small space.

Former Gov. George Pataki predicted in 2003 that the steel framework would be completed at the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower by Sept. 11, 2006, the fifth anniversary of the attack that destroyed the site. Instead, steel just rose above street level last month, and the skyscraper, redesigned and moved from its original spot for security reasons, may open in 2012 at the earliest.

Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer last September ordered one of his top development aides to set a “master rebuilding schedule” for the site that was never released.

The Port Authority three years ago reset most of the deadlines for the project in an agreement with developer Larry Silverstein, who leased the twin towers’ office space six weeks before terrorists destroyed them.

It has paid more than $14 million in late fees to Silverstein this year for failing to excavate land in time and on Wednesday said it would pay at least another $9.6 million in late fees for failing to meet another deadline.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who represents lower Manhattan, on Wednesday called Paterson’s account “as realistic as it is disappointing.”

Except for Silverstein, who rebuilt and opened a third skyscraper destroyed on Sept. 11 two years ago, Silver said, “the litany of construction delays is an embarrassment to New York and an insult to those who acted with heroism and expedience during the rescue, recovery and the cleanup.”

Robert Lieber, the deputy mayor for economic development, said the Port Authority should offer regular public updates on changing deadlines or budgets to “ensure the level of clarity offered on June 30 is maintained until the reconstruction is complete.”

Ward “is conducting a comprehensive assessment” to ensure the site’s progress continues, Port Authority spokesman Steve Sigmund said Wednesday.

Architect Daniel Libeskind’s master plan for ground zero was chosen in early 2003 by Pataki and the state’s Lower Manhattan Development Corp. He planned five towers arranged in a semicircle, a memorial to the attacks, the transit hub and an arts center.

The memorial, once scheduled to open in 2009, is now set for 2011, the 10th anniversary of the attacks. The towers’ deadlines are now between 2012 and 2013; the Port Authority recently allowed delays of several months for two of the towers to try to lure Merrill Lynch to become a tenant. The company has not agreed to a lease.

The transit hub, once budgeted at $2.2 billion with an opening date of 2009, had once been $1 billion over budget, and its completion has been estimated between 2011 and 2013.

The commuter rail hub’s delays are affecting the memorial, which would be next to it and share infrastructure, and the performing arts center, which would be built on a spot that now welcomes commuters to a temporary train station. The performing arts center is not completely designed, and planners are considering building it somewhere off the site.

Tags: Gov. Paterson, John Chromczak, redevelopment, World Trade Center

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