Proposed World Trade Centre site plans unveiled

NEW YORK - The man who wants to rebuild the World Trade Centre revealed his plan in detail yesterday, including a proposal to build an arts, civic and memorial centre on a small part of where one of the twin towers stood.

Larry Silverstein, the real estate developer who last July signed a 99-year lease for the World Trade Centre, will ask families of the victims how they feel about building on part of the area they view as hallowed ground.

He spoke to reporters yesterday, a week before the agency leading the site's redevelopment releases five other competing plans.

Silverstein's plan calls for a 2.02ha memorial where the north tower once stood, surrounded by five to six office buildings.

A mass-transit station would be built across the street from the memorial, as would underground shops.

Silverstein said his team's plan would win the competition because it did the best job of integrating the buildings with the mass-transit system needed to bring in commuters.

Civic experts agree that the cornerstone of any plan will be the memorial to the nearly 3000 people who died in the September 11 attacks that destroyed the 110-storey towers.

A huge battle has raged over how much of the 6.47ha site should be set aside for the memorial.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation wants to subject the six plans that will be submitted to a thorough public review, including a 5000-strong town hall meeting this month.

Neither Silverstein nor the city-state agency are necessarily in the drivers' seat, because the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey owns the land.

Jointly controlled by New York Governor George Pataki and New Jersey Governor James McGreevey, the authority has made it clear that the rebuilding must include enough commercial and retail space to help finance its billion-dollar budget.

That is the main obstacle facing a proposal by former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to preserve the entire site as a memorial to those who died.

To rebuild on the site, Silverstein will have to win a court fight with his insurers, who say they owe him US$3.55 billion ($7.3 billion), about half of what he is seeking.

The insurers claim the air attacks were one incident; Silverstein claims they were two, which means the insurers would owe him $7.1 billion.

Noting that the remains of about 2000 people have never been found, Silverstein, who has met family members, said: "It's a horror, an absolute horror, and none of us can contemplate how horrible it is."

The developer - who spent US$3.2 billion ($6.5 billion) to lease the World Trade Centre - proposed setting a square memorial on the west side of the site, bordering West St.

That roadway will be submerged, at an estimated cost of US$2 billion ($4.1 billion).

Five to six office towers would be built around the memorial, creating a framework.

The mass-transit station would be located just east of a reopened Greenwich St, a north-south thoroughfare.

Retail space would also be east of Greenwich St, and would be underground, partly to avoid clashing with the memorial.

Silverstein, who estimated it would take seven years and US$7 billion to rebuild the site, vowed that nothing commercial would be built where either tower stood.

Instead, the north tower's footprint would become part of the memorial, and the art, civic and memorial centre would be built over a small portion of where the south tower stood.

All the office towers would be about the same height as existing buildings in downtown Manhattan. There is little sentiment for rebuilding the 110-storey towers, mainly because office buildings that are higher than 65-storeys are now seen as impossible to evacuate.

Said Silverstein: "It's going to take awhile for people to recognise that similar tragedies, God forbid, will not recur."

- REUTERS

Story archives:

Terror in America - the Sept 11 attacks

Bioterrorism

War against terrorism

Links: Terror in America - the Sept 11 attacks

Timeline: Major events since the Sept 11 attacks