| NYguy |
Jan 13, 2011 3:02 AM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by STR
(Post 5119230)
There we go. 5WTC maximum envelope. GRSF would be somewhere between 1.5 and 1.8 million sqft with about 50 stories. Height 800 feet, floorplate is 190x180, which is probably a bit bigger than whatever gets built, but more than doable without requiring anyone to dig up the VSC again.
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Propose this tower anywhere else in Manhattan, and it's a decent sized addition. It gets lost in the excitement of rebuilding, but we'll have to see what eventually goes here.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/20...er=rss&emc=rss
Ten Years After 9/11, Deutsche Bank Tower Vanishes
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By DAVID W. DUNLAP
January 12, 2010
Quote:
The 41-story former Deutsche Bank building opposite the World Trade Center site is now the one-story former Deutsche Bank building.
Within a month, it should be down to zero; the last and largest of the 9/11 structural remnants to be cleared away, almost a full decade after it was seriously damaged in the attack and six years after the first of many promised completion dates.
The deconstruction project has spanned the administration of four governors, resulted in the death of two firefighters, cost nearly $160 million, riveted neighbors with fear of asbestos or other contaminants, revealed partial human remains from 9/11, darkened surrounding streets with tunnel-like sidewalk sheds and delayed progress on the overall redevelopment of the trade center, just across Liberty Street.
Now, sky has replaced the looming monolith.
“We like this view,” Avi Schick, the chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, said on Tuesday as he stood outdoors in what used to be the ground floor of the building at 130 Liberty Street. He could see the 1 World Trade Center and 4 World Trade Center towers rising to the north, with the memorial museum pavilion between them. “This view was a long time coming.”
The corporation acquired 130 Liberty Street in 2004 for the purpose of tearing it down. One delay followed another. The first deconstruction contractor came and went. Much of 2006 was spent trying to satisfy environmental regulators that potential contaminants would be safely removed. Deconstruction began in earnest but was halted at the 26th floor by a deadly fire in August 2007. The corporation and its construction manager, Bovis Lend Lease, are battling over claims amounting to tens of millions of dollars, but the project resumed in 2009.
The end of 130 Liberty Street is now in sight. The “roof” of the remaining structure is what was the floor slab of the second floor. There may not be much of that by the time you read this post. The concrete was being steadily broken up Tuesday morning by a remote-controlled demolition robot known by its trade name, Brokk. (Shades of “This Island Earth.”)
Steel beams were being cut apart from supporting columns with acetylene torches, then lifted away by crane. Soon, what little framework remains will be dismantled with a powerful mechanical shears. “It cuts steel like butter,” said Rick Livingston, the project manager for the corporation.
There is little on site that looks as if it was once part of a big office building, except two Detroit Diesel emergency generators and counterweights in the empty elevator shafts. The subterranean vault is open to view.
Much of what is left of the building is being pulverized into rubble and used as solid fill in the basement, which would otherwise tend to rise — believe it or not — because of the tremendous pressure exerted around it by the groundwater. Like the trade center, 130 Liberty Street was built on landfill.
The building will never disappear entirely, because its foundation walls and steel columns will remain, hidden below street level. They might even be used in some way to support whatever structure goes there next.
And what will that be? Julie Menin, the chairwoman of the Lower Manhattan community board and a board member of the development corporation, has been among those championing the idea of moving the proposed performing arts center to 130 Liberty Street from a site just east of 1 World Trade Center.
Neither Mr. Schick nor David Emil, the president of the development corporation, ruled out the possibility. In fact, Mr. Emil said the cost of building on the Liberty Street site — with existing foundations — would be significantly less than on the planned site, which is over PATH tracks and other subterranean infrastructure.
Preliminary diagrams showing how theaters, rehearsal halls and classrooms might be combined with a 35-story apartment building were drawn up in 2009 by Studio Daniel Libeskind, which devised the original trade center redevelopment plan.
“What the community desperately wants is to see this site activated as soon as possible,” Mr. Schick said. “The best and highest use would be some amenity that helps draw more people downtown while simultaneously improving the experience of those who already live and work here.”
The Port Authority will take over the site after deconstruction is complete, and use it as a staging area for the vehicle security center being built beneath the trade center. As to future development, the authority said in a statement: “Whether it is office, retail, hotel, residential or some mix of those uses, that development should be market driven to ensure its highest and best use.”
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January 11, 2011
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