Silverstein Properties

On Tuesday, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (“LMDC”) announced that it reached an agreement with its construction manager, Bovis Lend Lease, to hire a new subcontractor that will complete demolition efforts at the former Deutsche Bank Building on 130 Liberty Street. Work at the site has stalled for close to five months now in the aftermath of an August 18 construction fire on the project. LVI Services, Inc. will replace the John Galt Corporation (which was kicked off the job after evidence surfaced that smoking by its workers caused the fire) and first remove asbestos from the remaining 26 stories of the tower before razing it. The deal between Bovis and the LMDC came after a few testy weeks where the LMDC sent a notice of default to Bovis and came close to terminating the construction manager.

Silverstein Properties held a press conference last Thursday at its LEED Gold 7 World Trade Center to unveil updated architectural plans for neighboring Towers 2, 3, and 4 that will soon rise along Greenwich Street. Given today’s sixth anniversary of September 11, I thought it was appropriate to recognize these new buildings once again- all of which will seek a Gold rating under the LEED program. Silverstein expects Towers 3 and 4 (175 Greenwich Street and 150 Greenwich Street, respectively) to break ground sometime in January, with Tower 2 (200 Greenwich Street) following suit next July. The buildings will stand between Greenwich Street (which will now extend through the site) and Church Street, between Liberty and Vesey Streets; a 2012 occupancy is expected for each. The scope of the construction about to take place at the World Trade Center site is truly staggering- over $16 billion across a mere sixteen acres, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Norman Foster’s work at 200 Greenwich Street (which in my opinion is the most interesting piece of architecture that the project will produce) contemplates 2.3 million square feet of office space on sixty floors, 138,000 square feet of retail space, and four trading floors. Designed to resemble a cross with its sloping roof composed of four diamonds, the tower will become the second-tallest building in the city behind the Freedom Tower, topping even the Empire State Building when it reaches its height of seventy-nine stories and 1,270 feet. Each of the four blocks of office space that compose the tower are column-free and begin to taper back at the 59th floor in deference to the Memorial across the street (see image).

Richard Rogers’ 175 Greenwich Street will reach a height of seventy-one stories and 1,147 feet, boasting 2.1 million square feet of office space on fifty-four floors, five trading floors, and 193,000 square feet of retail space. According to Rogers, the design responds to the tower’s central site location - directly across the street from the axis formed by the Memorial’s two reflecting pools - by using a diagrid structural design, which emphasizes both the building’s east to west orientation and its verticality with respect to both the Memorial and the smaller 150 Greenwich to its south.