Is Ground Zero A Done Deal Or Not?
The Associated Press reported that a deal had finally been reached on rebuilding Ground Zero.
"This is about moving the rebuilding forward as quickly as possible," Silverstein said at a news conference Tuesday outside his 7 World Trade Center building facing ground zero. "All the finger-pointing must stop."
According to the AP, Silverstein would build three towers on the site and pay an additional $1.75 billion in rent over his 99-year lease in exchange for promises to fill more than 1 million square feet of office space towers under Silverstein's control with state and city leases. The Port Authority promised to secure additional leases and would move executive offices into the Freedom Tower, said vice chairman Charles Gargano.
The Port Authority would take over a fifth tower, located just off the site, which Silverstein said likely would become an apartment building.
Is this a done deal?
"... The PA's board wouldn't actually vote on the final plan until September - and a vital piece could fall through before then. Will Albany be able to transfer $250 million to the Port Authority so that it can build the Freedom Tower? Can New York find enough local, state and federal government tenants to commit to filling up the Freedom Tower, or will it renege on that pledge before the board meeting?"
The Port Authority (PA) is notorious for deconstructing such deals, as in New York State. When two states are involved, there is always some bit of unfinished business.
"...The current deal would hold Silverstein to a rigorous construction schedule. If he missed a deadline for any reason, he'd default, losing all three towers, not just the tower with the construction delay. The agreement lacks any clause to allow for construction delays caused by mundane events like stoppages for related work at the nearby memorial or at the new PATH station - or by spectacular events like a terrorist attack or an oil embargo."
The New York Daily News seems to always blame Larry Silverstein for this "tower of babel" but there is plenty of blame to pass to Governors Corzine and Pataki.
New York State wants Silverstein's comments at his press conference on paper -- and signed.
We can imagine Silverstein's agreement will be as much "in good faith" as the state governments of New York State and the New Jersey.
Which is another way of saying that this is anything but a "done deal" downtown.
Steve Cuozzo of The New York Post discusses "WHY THE NEWS HATES LARRY"
Cuozzo explained that Zuckerman is also chairman and a major shareholder in Boston Properties, a publicly traded real-estate company that owns, builds and manages first-class office buildings in the United States and Canada, including "six splendid Manhattan properties."
"Boston once craved the World Trade Center as well. But, in the Port Authority's auction for the 99-year leasehold early in 2001, the patrician, Canadian-born Zuckerman lost out to New York street fighter Silverstein."
Ouch. This is wretched stuff.
"Yet the News' editorial page last Friday claimed it was an "accident of history" that Silverstein ended up with the WTC just weeks before 9/11 - when it's a matter of historical fact that Silverstein soundly and publicly whipped Boston and its partner, Brookfield Properties, in the competition."
Accident of history or not, it sounds in bad taste to be discussing this angle at all -- by either news tabloid.
Sometimes, stuff like this -- pro or con -- leaves me turning to turning to the back page first or not buying either of these newspapers at all.
Nicole Gelinas had it right.
But the price of gas is getting more bearable than the continuing saga of this hole in the ground.
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