New WTC tower fulfilling Silverstein vision
THE NEWEST skyscraper to rise from the rubble of Ground Zero provides an 80-story endorsement of developer Larry Silverstein’s post-9/11 vision.
The construction at 3 World Trade Center, a magnificent tower in lower Manhattan, is heading into the homestretch before a planned spring 2018 opening.
Only days before the 16th anniversary of 9/11, dozens of busy construction workers installed heavy marble slabs this week in the 20,000-square-foot lobby of the nearly-finished high rise.
For Silverstein, who took title to the doomed twin towers just six weeks before 9/11, this latest milestone in the rebuilding of downtown provides one more bit of vindication for his controversial rebuilding plan.
“The first conversation I had with Gov. (George) Pataki, a couple of days after 9/11…he asked me, ‘Would you put back the twin towers?’ ” Silverstein told the Daily News. “And I said no, I don’t think so. What I envisioned was a group of four different towers.”
Silverstein cut a deal ceding control of the 1,776-foot tall 1 World Trade Center to the Port Authority in exchange for the right to develop those surrounding skyscrapers.
The first was 7 World Trade Center, opened in May 2006 and rising 52 stories. Nearby 4 World Center debuted in November 2013, a 72-story building at the southern end of the Oculus mass transit station.
Both buildings are now fully leased, said Silverstein.
With 3 World Trade Center poised for its opening, Silvestein’s proposed fourth building, 2 World Trade Center, still needs an anchor tenant to help with the financing.
A Silverstein spokesman acknowledged the signing of a major tenant would make financing and construction of 2 World Trade Center an easier proposition. “It is possible to get financing for a 100% speculative building such as 2 World Trade Center, but it is difficult,” he acknowledged. “(It’s) easier with an anchor tenant in place.”
Silverstein remains pleased with the tall trio of buildings erected under his watch. There was a time when the loved ones of 9/11 victims flatly opposed any construction on the site where 2,753 people died.
“After listening to them for some period of time, I finally got the courage to say to them, ‘At the end of the day, we have to be good New Yorkers and do what’s good for New York,” said Silverstein in his 7 WTC office.
The now 86-year-old head of Silverstein Properties said part of that mission was reinvigorating the grim neighborhood around the 16-acre development site.
“People were leaving their apartments in Battery Park City,” he recalled. “They just left. Commercial firms were leaving their office space. And so there was this enormous exodus, and people were saying, ‘Will the last one out turn off the lights?’ It was a very unhappy time.”
Silverstein said construction of the three buildings focused as much on the interior security structure as the soaring public facades. “It’s major reinforced concrete core...so all of the steel is erected after the core goes up” — like a building inside a building, he explained.
The inner core provides cover for the stairways, the elevators, sprinklers and communications systems. A tougher grade of steel was used throughout.
Looking back to the dark days after 9/11 and ahead to the bright lights of his third Ground Zero building, Silverstein said he’s learned two lessons.
“Learn to expect the unexpected,” he said. “And learn to deal with it.”