Posted Sep 7, 2021, 4:29 PM
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Join Date: Jul 2001
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https://commercialobserver.com/2021/...-trade-center/
2 World Trade Center Poised to Get Underway With New Architect
The last, big missing piece of the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site has switched architects and is poised to get underway
BY DAVID M. LEVITT
SEPTEMBER 7, 2021
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For the most conspicuous missing piece of the post-9/11 master plan for the 16-acre World Trade Center site: It’s try, try again.
Silverstein Properties, which retains the building rights to 2 World Trade Center, is going back to architect Norman Foster of Foster + Partners as it tries to get what would be the second-tallest skyscraper at the site going.
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….. the designing of 2 World Trade has been returned to Norman Foster, the British architect best known for the “Gherkin”, an office tower in London so nicknamed due to its vegetable shape; 425 Park Avenue in New York, the first new construction on Park’s finance corridor in about 40 years; the Hearst headquarters on Eighth Avenue, a series of interlocking triangles rising out of a castle-like base built in the 1920s; and the ring-shaped Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.
“We are proud to have been part of the World Trade Center redevelopment since 2005, when we were selected to design 2 World Trade Center,” said David Summerfield, a senior executive partner at Foster + Partners and lead architect for 2 WTC. “We can confirm that we are working with Larry Silverstein and the Silverstein organization on a new design for the building.”
The architect originally proposed a tower that would have four distinct sections, each rising to a slanted top, a design that would have appeared as four diamonds slanted in the direction of the memorial to the two original Twin Towers, now replaced by two square-shaped pools at the approximate spots where those towers stood.
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Silverstein, which leased the World Trade Center offices from the owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a mere six weeks before the terrorist attack, is also in search of an occupant that would be key to getting 2 World Trade built. “The company is seeking an anchor tenant so it can get financing to have it built,” said Silverstein spokesperson Dara McQuillan.
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Both 7 and 4 World Trade are fully occupied, and the occupancy rate at 3 World Trade is 80 percent, according to McQuillan. “It would have been at 100 percent if it weren’t for the pandemic,” he said.
The 2 World Trade site today is taken up by a corrugated steel shed festooned with artwork. McQuillan said the shed contains utilities that serve the Oculus PATH terminal and shopping mall just south of the site. Underneath the site, he said the foundation for the skyscraper is already complete, which would shave one to two years off the time it typically takes for a building that big.
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Jeremy Moss, Silverstein’s executive vice president and director of leasing, expressed certainty that, within the next six to 12 months, “we will have commitments to the building” that will be enough to green-light construction. That’s given the interest the project has already generated from the business community. While Moss wouldn’t name names, he said companies from both the technology and finance industries have expressed enthusiasm in 2 World Trade.
“ It’s the natural next step, and the final step, in the development of the World Trade Center,” Moss said. “The demand for high-quality office space is probably greater than it’s ever been. Even during, and coming out of, the pandemic, there is a clear flight to quality, as companies place more value on the quality of their space than the cost of their space. It’s worth every penny to make sure they are creating the ideal environment.”
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