The Battle For Ground Zero, Part XXVIII

UPDATE II - MOVED TO TOP 1:28PM:
The New York Daily News is reporting that The Drawing Center will not be participating in the Ground Zero cultural center and the IFC will have until September 23, 2005 to "to work with family members and produce specific plans for its museum. If the plans do not satisfy the LMDC, he said, “we will find another use or tenant consistent with our objectives for that space.”"

If the IFC cannot come up with a satisfactory plan, other suitable tenants will be selected by the LMDC. I can think of one suitable tenant - the 9/11 Memorial. Give them the space to expand their ability to display 9/11 related materials at street level.

This is great news for all those who thought the participation of the IFC and The Drawing Center were inappropriate for the site.

RESUME ORIGINAL/UPDATE:

Goldman Sachs has decided to do the right thing and will be building their new headquarters building across from the WTC site. You may recall that Goldman Sachs initially sought to build across from the site, but then backed out because the reconstruction of West Street (Rt 9A) was going to include a tunnel bypass whose entrance would be adjacent to the Goldman Sachs site.

That tunnel bypass plan has been shelved, and Goldman Sachs has decided to commit to the building. That, in turn, should spur additional development downtown.

Under the new agreement, which still requires approval of the firm's board, the city comptroller and some state authorities, Goldman would get at least $150 million in new city and state tax credits, as well as $600 million of new Liberty Bonds to add to the $1 billion in previously issued bonds, the officials said. Liberty Bonds, which reduce private borrowing costs at government expense, are intended primarily for commercial tenants in Lower Manhattan.

In addition, the city has agreed to change the streetscape around Site 26, where the two-million-square-foot office tower would rise on West Street. For example, the bike lane and sidewalk on the street would be narrowed to accommodate bollards to protect the building from truck bombs. The direction of traffic on Murray Street would probably be reversed to reduce the number of vehicles whizzing by the buildings.

The city and state were willing to make the concessions, however painful, because Goldman Sachs is not just any tenant. Officials have considered it crucial to revitalizing commercial downtown. The firm's decision is likely to encourage other businesses that have avoided coming into Lower Manhattan since the attack on the trade center, and officials hope its return will secure Lower Manhattan's primacy as a financial powerhouse.

UPDATE:
A lawsuit by an architectural student against David Childs may proceed. The suit alleges copyright infringement against Childs on his 2003 design for the Freedom Tower.

The student, Thomas Shine, now an architect in Brookline, Mass., sued Mr. Childs and his firm, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, last year. He charged that they had copied Freedom Tower from Olympic Tower, Mr. Shine's project at the Yale School of Architecture, which Mr. Childs saw and admired as a jurist critiquing students' work. Skidmore denied the allegation. And the resemblance.

Childs has since redesigned the Freedom Tower because of security concerns so that it no longer resembers the torqued tower concept in the 2003 design.