Five Northeast Buildings Targeted in New 'Credible' Terror Threat

NEW YORK CITY—The Department of Homeland Security named five Northeast region buildings: the Citicorp building and the New York Stock Exchange here; the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank buildings in Washington, DC; and the Prudential building in Newark, NJ as potential targets of a new terrorist attack. Homeland security secretary Tom Ridge said at a Sunday press conference that the intelligence pointing to a potential al-Qaeda attack is more than just the “usual chatter.” All of the buildings named are major centers of financial services. Cushman & Wakefield manages all of the Prudential space in Newark as well as the Citigroup portion of the Citicorp Center in Manhattan. That building is owned by Boston Properties. Spokespeople from C&W refused to comment about any plans for stepping up security.While none of the buildings targeted are managed by CB Richard Ellis, a spokesperson explains that whenever the security threat increases, building management ensures that the security measures outlined for each managed building are in place. He refused to detail those measures.Neither would Trizec’s spokesperson. He did say, however, that “We are being briefed by the appropriate authorities. We have an ongoing line of communication with them and will of course do everything possible to ensure that our tenants are secure.” Noteworthy to Ridge was the credibility of the sources and the degree of “specificity” in the intelligence, which included traffic patterns and details of security. No timeframe was connected to this latest threat.In a follow-up press conference, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg reported that the possibility of vehicular bombs and bombs smuggled into buildings by individuals on foot are of particular concern. At that same conference, police commissioner Ray Kelly stated that the police department is working with the security directors of the tenant corporations at the targeted assets to safeguard against infiltration of HVAC systems.While Ridge explained that the terrorist alert level has been raised to orange only for these specific buildings, Bloomberg in his conference noted that the alert level in Manhattan has remained at orange since Sept. 11. According to BOMA/NY’s Al Lyons, who serves as co-chair of its Security Task Force and is a principal of ARUP, BOMA will have individual volunteers from some of its member organizations working from Aug. 27 through Sept. 4 at OEM’s HQ at the BOMA/NY desk making sure that key information regarding the Republican Convention and the city funnels immediately to the organization’s members.Lyons says BOMA is also involved with the New York City Mitigation Planning Council, whose membership includes government agencies, utilities, and other organizations with an interest in mitigating hazards–natural and technical–in the city. At at recent Security/ Building Emergency Action Plan joint task force meeting, a crowd of almost 30 comprised of building managers, security professionals and reps from several city agencies had no comment when asked about security measures in the Wall Street area.