The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 71

The price tag for the World Trade Center memorial and memorial museum will approach a half-billion dollars, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation said yesterday as it offered the first glimpse of budget estimates in almost two years.

The estimates - up to $330 million for the memorial itself and up to $160 million for the museum - were made public as the possibility grew that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey would take over construction of the memorial.

Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who do not always see eye-to-eye on ground zero matters, both said on Monday that if the authority guaranteed to finish the job with no cost overruns, it would be a strong contender to serve as construction manager.

Even with an above-ground visitors' center, the total cost of the memorial complex will end up less than $750 million, said Stefan Pryor, the president of the development corporation. That raises the possibility that some money that would have gone to the memorial might help pay instead for a performing arts center.

The Port Authority would be a strong contender if it guaranteed to finish the job with no cost overruns? Who are they kidding? Of course there's going to be potential cost overruns - the price tag for the site continues to climb because construction materials cost far more than they did a year ago due to increased demand domestically due to the hurricane rebuilding and overseas in China. I think most people would settle for cost containment, but the strongest hedge against costs spiralling out of control is to get construction underway before costs increase even further.

I guess we should be thankful that Bloomberg and Pataki agree on containing costs on the construction of the site. In fact, they've become Ground Zero buddies. Maybe that's because the Governor has noted that he might be more flexible on the rebuilding of all 10 million square feet of office space. How shortsighted of him. One of the ways to attract business to the city is to provide affordable quality office space, and building out the office space in Lower Manhattan fulfills that need into the future. A building isn't built for current needs, but on future expectations of market needs.

Meanwhile, $125 million in 9/11 federal aid that was cut by the feds last week may be restored by Congress according to a top Republican leader.

The money was allocated to cover workers' compensation claims as part of the $20 billion pledged by President Bush to help the city recover from 9/11.

But cops and firefighters don't participate in the workers' comp program — so the restricted fund sat unused for four years.

UPDATE:
George Marlin, a former executive director of the Port Authority says that giving the Port Authority control over construction at the site is precisely the wrong step to take.

PA Chairman Ken Ringler naively claimed last week that the agency is merely offering "expertise" — its skill at "finding efficiencies." How Ringler read that script with a straight face is beyond me — for the PA has a storied history of waste and inefficiencies.

Over the years, the agency has squandered hundreds of millions of dollars on the JFK "Tunnel to Nowhere," the failed fish port, industrial parks and a language school. When Pataki became governor in 1995, the PA hadn't completed a major capital project in two decades.

Historically, the PA wasted resources supporting a bloated bureaucracy packed with unnecessary layers of highly paid management whose main concern was preservation of their power, their perks and their pensions.

Its own commissioned study, the 1994 Deloitte & Touche "Review of the Functional, Operational, Financial and Administrative Activities of the PA World Trade Department," detailed in 400 pages the agency's incompetence in managing commercial real estate — demonstrating that government bureaucrats are unsuited to be in that market.

The heroism of the Port Authority Police alongside their city counterparts on 9/11 shouldn't obscure the PA bureaucrats' record of incompetence. Remember, rebuilding at Ground Zero was already set back 16 months because the PA stonewalled NYPD Commissioner Kelly's valid security concerns.

I think Marlin has some valid points, but there is something to be said for a single entity providing oversight and coordination in the construction. Whether that is the PA or a private construction management group is up to the LMDC and the developers.

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