New Yorkers angry over delays in rebuilding World Trade Centre site

[FarCenter]

Six and a half years after ambitious and highly symbolic designs were unveiled for the devastated 16-acre site in lower Manhattan, a combination of political wrangling, financial rows, engineering complications and the economic downturn have meant there is little to show for all the talk of standing up to terrorism.

Only one of the five towers planned for the Ground Zero site has broken ground. The frame for the 1,776-foot so-called Freedom Tower is now several stories high but, humiliatingly for some, the landmark building has been renamed One World Trade Centre to make it more marketable to clients.

With New York facing a glut of office space, there is no firm date for the planned three office towers while the fifth building – a performing arts centre – has received neither a finished design nor financing.

Even the memorial to the 2,752 people who died after al-Qaeda hijackers flew two passenger jets into the Twin Towers has been dogged by delays.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6169172/New-Yorkers-angry-over-delays-in-rebuilding-World-Trade-Centre-site.html

[bettyellen]

1. it is a mess down there. im glad Freedon Tower is being renamed though.

[onehandle]

5. Agreed. I never need to hear the word 'freedom' for the rest of my life. nt

[Mist]

2. Is the office space really needed? I've always heard that the WTC was never

rented to capacity. Why build another white elephant?

[smirkymonkey]

9. No, I live here and I don't know one New Yorker who would take a

job in that building even if it did finally go up.

[HamdenRice]

3. My tinfoil hat theory: Larry Silverstein knows something, hence extorts bizarre concessions

If you are in NYC and follow this story, much of the delay involves Larry Silverstein, the developer who leased the WTC a few months before the attacks.

Silverstein has been the main roadblock to redeveloping the site. His demands are truly outrageous, even though he pretty much won his insurance case and has been paid off.

Why Silverstein is still in the picture is the biggest mystery of the redevelopment of the site. During these years, the City government used eminent domain to expropriate hundreds of property owners around the heart of Brooklyn at the site known as Atlantic Yards. Yet Silverstein can be the biggest asshole in New York City, preventing redevelopment of the most important symbolic piece of real estate in the city, and there seems to be nothing whatsoever that the city, state or federal government can do to make this guy's lease go away.

Just expropriate the motherfucker already. His lease isn't worth shit at this point, and it's cheaper to pay him off.

What leverage does this guy have over the entire project?

[Stevenmarc]

6. Larry the lawsuit is the main problem and that's why eminent domain won't work

Larry Silverstein has the money and lawyers, unlike the Atlantic Yards property owners, to be able fight NYC if they choose to use eminent domain as a solution.

[HamdenRice]

8. But if a court did a fair market valuation, WTF is Larry's lease worth?

I agree he has lawyers & resources, but this goes beyond cost/benefit analysis.

I also agree -- he's THE MAIN PROBLEM.

[Stevenmarc]

10. There's the problem

Larry's perception of fair market value is pretty much guaranteed not to be in line with the courts concept of fair market value and Larry is certainly not afraid to use his resources to prove his position, Larry will dig in and then we will have to play another round of who blinks first, that said I'm sure he has a price and I'm sure the powers that be know what that price is and are not willing to pay it, yet.

[alcibiades_mystery]

4. I was just saying this to my wife this morning

It's been eight years. Put up a shed at least. Jesus.

[FarCenter]

7. They do have sort of a shed -- its where the PATH station is

However the WTC Transit Hub is delayed until 2013 - 2014.

http://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/index.ssf?/base/news-3/1223274328125550.xml&coll=3