The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 160

Westfield Properties envisions opening up its retail center in 2015 after signing new agreements with the Port Authority.

After years of negotiation, Westfield (WDC.AX) last week signed a deal with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for a $1.25 billion joint venture to lease the retail space at the World Trade Center.

Westfield, one of the world's biggest mall owners, said the first retailers for the redeveloped site could be announced by the first half of 2013, with an opening date set for March 2015.

Potential tenants of the rebuilt World Trade Center got a peak at what the new shopping area may look like during a trade conference in Las Vegas on Monday.

Westfield Co-Chief Executive Peter Lowy said 352,000 sq feet of shopping would be spread over three above-ground levels and two below ground.

Westfield is also entitled to operate another 90,000 sq feet of retail space among the 8.8 million sq feet of office space under construction.

Lowy said Westfield planned to be selective about possible tenants.

"We're going to do something that no one can imagine," Lowy told Reuters during the International Council of Shopping Centers annual convention, or RECon.

The mall would include space related to the PATH Transit Hub and the lower levels of 2, 3, and 4 WTC. One should note that before its destruction on 9/11, the WTC mall was one of the most profitable in the world on a per square footage basis, and there's no reason to think that the new retail center would not be successful.

In fact, neighboring Battery Park City's Brookfield Properties is renovating its Winter Garden and retail options to compete with the expected World Trade Center offerings.

Meanwhile, there's still a kerfuffle over where Fritz Koenig's The Sphere should be relocated. It has to be moved out of Battery Park City because of construction at the temporary location, and it should be relocated to the WTC Memorial, but the Memorial officials claim that there's no room for it. I find that preposterous considering that they could make room at any number of places on the site. It deserves to be relocated back at the site and it is a very visible reminder of the attacks as one of the enduring symbols to be recovered.

Shuttle Enterprise Comes To New York City

UPDATE:

Here's better photos of the return pass before the Shuttle Enterprise comes in for a landing at JFK International Airport in Queens. The 747 and Enterprise are emerging from behind the World Financial Center and the National 9/11 Museum is the structure below and 3WTC is the structure on the left:

UPDATE:
I've had a chance to review the photos more closely, and here's another good one:

 

A Perimeter Walk Around Ground Zero

The tour starts outside Engine 10 located on the South side of Ground Zero. We're looking North across the WTC memorial and towards 1WTC. The World Financial Center is in the background:

This photo shows from left to right, the Goldman Sachs building (just outside Ground Zero to the NW), the Freedom Tower (1WTC), 7WTC, and 4WTC. The low-slung brick-faced building in the center is Fiterman Hall.

Crossing West Street, this is a view from the SW corner of Ground Zero and you can see across the Memorial Plaza and the WTC Museum protruding in the background. In the foreground, exhaust ducts for PATH and other underground facilities are clad in stainless steel:

1WTC as viewed from West Street looking North:



Looking back towards the SE corner of Ground Zero, you can see where the former Deutsche Bank building once stood and where the Vehicle Security Center facility is underway:


Taken from inside the World Financial Center, this shows the underground connector that will take commuters from the WFC into the PATH Transit Hub and then across to the Fulton Street Transit Center via the Dey Street Connector:


Looking up at 1WTC from 7WTC. You can see the service elevators and the side-mounted crane that is at the corner of Vesey and West Street:

A close up of the new Fiterman Hall. It isn't actually clad in brick, but rather in concrete panels that have been made to look like brick. The panels were hoisted into place and the building is starting to be sealed with window installation that began over the past two weeks:

All photos were
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The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 116

Construction is proceeding all around Ground Zero as the Freedom Tower (1WTC) and 4WTC both rise gradually above the site. The museum and memorial spaces continue to be built out.

At the same time, the Winter Garden, which is located in the World Financial Center across West Street and was wrecked by falling debris on 9/11 is in for a makeover. The Winter Garden had connected to the World Trade Center with a pedestrian bridge before the 9/11 attacks, but the new WTC complex will connect with the World Financial Center via an underground passage that will link up with the Santiago Calatrava-designed transit hub and the upgraded Fulton Street station.

The Winter Garden is one of the grand public spaces in the City and the staircase is one of the reasons.

However, the underground connector means that the current grand staircase may disappear so that the frontage with West Street can be opened up. Brookfield Properties, which operates the Winter Garden, has proposed a new design for the building.

Brookfield also plans to create a two-level market and 714-seat food court in the retail space just south of the Winter Garden, with cafes and test kitchens by the city’s top restaurateurs.

David Cheikin, vice president of leasing for Brookfield, said he hopes to revive the Financial Center’s sleepy, underutilized retail by serving local residents in addition to office workers.

"We believe we can take [the WFC] from a five-day-a-week retail corridor to a seven-day [corridor]," Cheikin said Monday night.

Many Battery Park City residents strongly object to demolishing the Grand Staircase, which was rebuilt after 9/11 and has since become a place of community gathering. City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden also wants to preserve the stairs.

However, Brookfield executives said that if the stairs stay in place, they would create a choke point by blocking the exit of the new pedestrian tunnel beneath West Street, scheduled to open by the end of 2012.

"We like those stairs, too," Lawrence Graham, a Brookfield vice president, told CB1 Monday. "We wish we could have found something different. Obviously, it would have been cheaper for us [to keep the stairs in place]."

Meanwhile, Fiterman Hall is rising adjacent to 7WTC between West Broadway and Greenwich Streets. Steel has reached 6 stories above street level.

It will start receiving the brick cladding on its exterior in coming weeks and the exterior work should be complete within a year.

At the same time, the Port Authority is looking to restart talks over the fate of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was destroyed by the collapsing towers. The site is adjacent to the former Deutsche Bank building, which is thankfully in the final stages of demolition more than nine years after the attacks.

UPDATE:
A LMDC Committee is proposing a reallocation of funds to cover construction of a performing arts center, which may end up being built on the site of the former Deutsche Bank building. The Joyce Theater is the primary tenant for the performing arts center, but it is quite likely to be joined by at least one other group so as to make the most of the space.

A committee of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation on Wednesday recommended that the corporation allocate up to $100 million for the performing arts center planned for ground zero. The money would come from a pool of some $200 million formerly designated for utility companies. At the corporation’s Wednesday board meeting, Kate D. Levin, the New York City cultural affairs commissioner, said the money was important “to fulfill this critical part of the master plan.”

The financing, which requires approval by the full board, would add to $50 million in federal money set aside for the project, which is controlled by the development corporation. Still unresolved is whether to build the performing arts center on the World Trade Center site, as called for in the master plan, or at 130 Liberty Street, site of the former Deutsche Bank building. The center’s primary tenant is to be the Joyce Theater, which presents dance.