GlobeSt.com UPDATE: WTC Design Competition Calls for 'Excitement, Creativity'

NEW YORK CITY-Nearly a year after the World Trade Center was destroyed by terrorist bombs, the agency charged with coordinating the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan has scrapped its operational plan and is going back to the drawing board, literally. The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. will host a global competition to select five new design teams and will set forth revised guidelines recommending less office space, more residential uses, a greater emphasis on cultural institutions and a lot more pizzazz.

Under its former development plan, the LMDC chose a single team–architecture firms Beyer Blinder Belle and Peterson Littenberg–to deliver a three-phased Downtown land-use proposal by December. The first phase, which included six design models, was savaged by the public and panned in the press.

At a press conference held yesterday to announce the new course of action, LMDC board member and the lead owner of Chelsea Piers, Roland Betts, noted today that critics of the plans called them “mundane, boring, and pedestrian. They lacked spunk. We are looking for excitement and creativity.” (GlobeSt.com reported the LMDC’s plan yesterday. See: LMDC Launches WTC Design Competition; Revises Guidelines.)