News Archive
Slow going at Ground Zero, owner says
Released on 11/07/2008
The owner of the World Trade Center site has admitted that every project in its multi-billion-pound redevelopment is both behind schedule and over budget.
Christopher Ward, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, admitted that previous estimates for completion of the reconstruction of the site of the September 11 bomb attacks were unrealistic.
He proposed scrapping both the budget and schedule, the New York Post reported.
Mr Ward suggested that a committee of developers and government agencies should meet to set new, “clear and achievable timelines” by the end of September.
“The schedule and cost estimates of the rebuilding effort that have been communicated to the public are not realistic,” Ward wrote to David Paterson, the Governor of New York State, according to the New York Post.
The earliest opening date for any project at the site is 2011, the 10th anniversary of the attack. The Freedom Tower and other skyscrapers planned for ground zero aren’t expected to open until 2013.
The deadlines for building the office towers, memorial and September 11 museum, a transit hub, and performing arts centre have changed several times. At one point, the plan was for the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower to be ready by 2008.
Mr Ward listed 15 issues slowing the rebuilding down, the New York Post reported.
A transit hub, featuring a winged dome designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, presented some of the greatest rebuilding obstacles because it affects office towers. Initially budgeted at US$2.2 billion, estimates have soared as high as $3.4 billion.
Mr Ward said the Port Authority was working on several options to cut costs, including redesigning the dome so that its roof does not open and close as once designed.
Other issues included part of a city subway line that runs in the middle of several of the projects, and the protracted dismantling of a condemned ground zero tower where one of the skyscrapers is going to be built, he said.
“To forecast completion dates and costs before these fundamental issues have been resolved – and before engineering and construction professionals have validated the schedule and cost impacts of those decisions – would only create a new set of commitments and expectations that are unrealistic,” Mr Ward told the New York Post.
He proposed a committee to oversee new timelines that includes private developer Larry Silverstein who is in charge of building three of five towers, the Port Authority, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporaion, the mayor’s office, the foundation building the memorial and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
