The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 50

Did someone forget to tell Larry Silverstein that the plans for retail development at Ground Zero are going to be much larger than earlier indicated?

It was announced last week that the PA wants to build more store space than existed in the entire Twin Towers concourse along Church Street at Ground Zero — a boon to retail-shy downtown.

Some of it would be in the new Santiago Calatrava-designed PATH terminal, now under construction.

But the larger portion would be connected to or actually inside office towers 3 and 4, which Silverstein aims to build within 10 years.

Once a final plan is chosen, the PA would solicit prospective developers to take on the job.

That raised questions, however. For one thing, a five-level retail galleria of the sort now in the dream stage exists nowhere in Daniel Libeskind's master site plan.

Because Ground Zero's numerous elements are so tightly interwoven — the "game of inches," as it's been called — it's hard to just plop in something new without affecting all around it.

And just as Silverstein needs the PA's blessing to build anything on the agency's land, it is not logical to assume that the PA could simply decide to install giant shopping atriums inside Silverstein's towers.

"We have not had any specific discussions on this. We haven't shown him our vision yet," Ringler said, adding that there is general consensus — which includes Silverstein — that retail is needed at the site.

And that doesn't even get into the safety related questions. How can additional skyscrapers be built on the site that do not contain the kind of fortified lower floors as was required for the Freedom Tower?

UPDATE:
I'm sorry I didn't catch this story earlier - as it should be the lede. The LMDC issues a public rebuke to Pataki's decision to can the IFC.

"In all candor," Mr. Whitehead said as he opened the monthly meeting, "I must report that most of our board, including its chairman, were quite distressed that a process which we had established two years ago with full public approval was not allowed to work its way through to conclusion."

He added, "It is hard for us to negotiate and settle the many issues that will come before us in the months ahead unless we are seen by others to have the necessary ability to make the decisions, the necessary authority to make the decisions."

Every member of the board spoke out publicly, itself a great rarity. It was possible to infer from their statements that had the governor allowed the matter to come to a vote, the development corporation board would have tried to find a way to keep the Freedom Center on the larger trade center site, though off the memorial quadrant.

Whether supporters of the Freedom Center on the board would have constituted a voting majority, however, is open to question since at least two of them Roland W. Betts and Madelyn Wils might have been required to recuse themselves because of their ties to the Freedom Center or its chairman, Tom A. Bernstein.

And with that last sentence, we get to the crux of the problem. The IFC was selected because of its political ties and it was able to fly under the radar until Debra Burlingame blew the lid off the issue. The Board of the LMDC refused to act decisively because of its personal ties, and the Governor decided to act because he was catching too much flak politically. And what remains curious is that the LMDC website is stuck in a timewarp, with no reference to the IFC kerfuffle or the Drawing Center/IFC dropping out of the rebuilding.

Technorati: World Trade Center, WTC, Pataki, LMDC, urban policy, Freedom Tower,