Jones Lang LaSalle
NYC 04 23 06
FREEDOM LESS THAN ZERO
Peter Slatin
Imagine the offices of Rockefeller Center, emptied out and then seeded with a scattering of government bureaucracies. Imagine the center's retail as a mix of drug stores, lunch counters and off-price clothiers. From that base, imagine trying to encourage the kind of tenant needed to transform the historic complex into a 24/7 urban platform, an engine of prosperity for Midtown and an anchor of New York's global business leadership.
Imagine that it would take three decades and cost untold fortunes in public monies to make that happen: to entice tenants and tourists and shoppers and thus create a thriving destination. Imagine it finally works.
Then imagine abruptly tearing it down and doing the same thing all over again exactly as before. And imagine giving a single developer a substantial fortune to do just that.
Finally, imagine taking credit for such an accomplishment.
Last week, governors George Pataki and Jon Corzine of New York and New Jersey and Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City emerged into view as the Unified Front for the Liberation of Ground Zero. Presenting two "very reasonable offers" (as described in an editorial in Saturday's New York Times to Larry Silverstein, they made it appear as if the imminent redevelopment of the World Trade Center was a fait accompli, brought about by their persevering vision and sacrifice. If Silverstein agrees with them--as he may, after a period of huffing and puffing about his own persevering vision and sacrifice--the public is apt to feel the sacrifice that comes from an extreme lack of vision at the highest levels of government. But the public will persevere, although it may not prevail, in this tug of war for legacy bragging rights between money and power.
Along with its general sour taste, there are many things to dislike about this latest version of the Ground Zero plan. Two elements stand particularly large. The first, and the closer it comes to reality the more it bears repeating, is Freedom Tower itself. If all goes as currently set forth, construction will begin in earnest on this building within a month. When completed, it will rise as a stark counterpoint to the new 7 World Trade Center, which is arguably architect David M. Childs' finest building. As much as the shimmering No. 7 lights up the northern edge of Ground Zero, Freedom Tower will occlude its piece of sky, standing not as a beacon but looming like an unfortunate headstone on the jagged horizon of Lower Manhattan.
Governor Pataki has sought from the start of the rebuilding process to mold it as a testament to his leadership. The current state of affairs is certainly just that, even if he may not like what it reveals. He has pushed Freedom Tower because it will serve as the expression of that leadership, despite the mounting evidence that its construction is ill-advised for many reasons, from its still-born design to the stark fact of a virtually non-existent tenant base. Although 7 World Trade is only 20% leased today, it will likely fill up or nearly so within the next 12 to 18 months. The challenges that Larry Silverstein's leasing agents at CB Richard Ellis have faced there are essentially market-related. But leasing out Freedom Tower will be something else entirely: representatives of the large corporations and law firms that are such a building's prospective
Where it will rise, the public will be shut out by the absence of needed public space beyond the memorial, outside the retail.
Even this, however, is not the most onerous--and astonishing--part of the government's proposal to Larry Silverstein: the planned office complex will essentially recreate the World Trade Center, not just in size, as has been blithely planned all along to satisfy insurers, but in its family values. It will be a half-empty government office ghetto.
If Silverstein accepts the proposal, he will be required to build more than six million square feet of office space on the site in the next six years; the Port Authority will start by building the 2 million-square-foot Freedom Tower. The government has pledged that it will fill a total of 1.2 million square feet in Silverstein's buildings, although it could decide against doing that between now and September even if Silverstein accepts the plan, leaving him without any tenant base at all.
(A fifth site, now occupied by the condemned and soon-to-be demolished Deutsche Bank tower, would be built by the government or sold to another developer.)
What would be lost if nothing is built until it is needed? Billions in insurance and Liberty Bond payments to Silverstein; the former will only be paid for the reconstruction of office space. While that money poured into the Lower Manhattan economy can only help, the presence of see-through office buildings, whether hulking or heroic in design, built to satisfy political aspiration, the will of giant insurers and the ambition of a New York developer, will bring us back to where we were on September 10, 2001. While we may wish that to be the case, it just isn't so. We owe it to those who perished and to those who survive them, and even more to those yet to come, to raise the bar.
© 2005. The Slatin Report. All rights reserved.
Website Design by dbox
NYC 04 23 06
FREEDOM LESS THAN ZERO
Peter Slatin
Imagine the offices of Rockefeller Center, emptied out and then seeded with a scattering of government bureaucracies. Imagine the center's retail as a mix of drug stores, lunch counters and off-price clothiers. From that base, imagine trying to encourage the kind of tenant needed to transform the historic complex into a 24/7 urban platform, an engine of prosperity for Midtown and an anchor of New York's global business leadership.
Imagine that it would take three decades and cost untold fortunes in public monies to make that happen: to entice tenants and tourists and shoppers and thus create a thriving destination. Imagine it finally works.
Then imagine abruptly tearing it down and doing the same thing all over again exactly as before. And imagine giving a single developer a substantial fortune to do just that.
Finally, imagine taking credit for such an accomplishment.
Last week, governors George Pataki and Jon Corzine of New York and New Jersey and Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City emerged into view as the Unified Front for the Liberation of Ground Zero. Presenting two "very reasonable offers" (as described in an editorial in Saturday's New York Times to Larry Silverstein, they made it appear as if the imminent redevelopment of the World Trade Center was a fait accompli, brought about by their persevering vision and sacrifice. If Silverstein agrees with them--as he may, after a period of huffing and puffing about his own persevering vision and sacrifice--the public is apt to feel the sacrifice that comes from an extreme lack of vision at the highest levels of government. But the public will persevere, although it may not prevail, in this tug of war for legacy bragging rights between money and power.
Along with its general sour taste, there are many things to dislike about this latest version of the Ground Zero plan. Two elements stand particularly large. The first, and the closer it comes to reality the more it bears repeating, is Freedom Tower itself. If all goes as currently set forth, construction will begin in earnest on this building within a month. When completed, it will rise as a stark counterpoint to the new 7 World Trade Center, which is arguably architect David M. Childs' finest building. As much as the shimmering No. 7 lights up the northern edge of Ground Zero, Freedom Tower will occlude its piece of sky, standing not as a beacon but looming like an unfortunate headstone on the jagged horizon of Lower Manhattan.
Governor Pataki has sought from the start of the rebuilding process to mold it as a testament to his leadership. The current state of affairs is certainly just that, even if he may not like what it reveals. He has pushed Freedom Tower because it will serve as the expression of that leadership, despite the mounting evidence that its construction is ill-advised for many reasons, from its still-born design to the stark fact of a virtually non-existent tenant base. Although 7 World Trade is only 20% leased today, it will likely fill up or nearly so within the next 12 to 18 months. The challenges that Larry Silverstein's leasing agents at CB Richard Ellis have faced there are essentially market-related. But leasing out Freedom Tower will be something else entirely: representatives of the large corporations and law firms that are such a building's prospective
Where it will rise, the public will be shut out by the absence of needed public space beyond the memorial, outside the retail.
Even this, however, is not the most onerous--and astonishing--part of the government's proposal to Larry Silverstein: the planned office complex will essentially recreate the World Trade Center, not just in size, as has been blithely planned all along to satisfy insurers, but in its family values. It will be a half-empty government office ghetto.
If Silverstein accepts the proposal, he will be required to build more than six million square feet of office space on the site in the next six years; the Port Authority will start by building the 2 million-square-foot Freedom Tower. The government has pledged that it will fill a total of 1.2 million square feet in Silverstein's buildings, although it could decide against doing that between now and September even if Silverstein accepts the plan, leaving him without any tenant base at all.
(A fifth site, now occupied by the condemned and soon-to-be demolished Deutsche Bank tower, would be built by the government or sold to another developer.)
What would be lost if nothing is built until it is needed? Billions in insurance and Liberty Bond payments to Silverstein; the former will only be paid for the reconstruction of office space. While that money poured into the Lower Manhattan economy can only help, the presence of see-through office buildings, whether hulking or heroic in design, built to satisfy political aspiration, the will of giant insurers and the ambition of a New York developer, will bring us back to where we were on September 10, 2001. While we may wish that to be the case, it just isn't so. We owe it to those who perished and to those who survive them, and even more to those yet to come, to raise the bar.
© 2005. The Slatin Report. All rights reserved.
Website Design by dbox
posted by Jones Lang LaSalle NJ News Blog at 10:39 AM
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