WTC Rebuilding Schedule Gets New Roadmap

NEW YORK CITY-In a board meeting Thursday morning, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s detailed an updated progress report on the World Trade Center redevelopment, outlining a road map that will guide the ongoing rebuilding of the site. The report was an attempt to bring a new level of certainty and control to the complex project and, for the most part, sources say the agency has come up with an achievable timetable.

Elizabeth Berger, president of the Downtown Alliance says that the report is “a welcome new road map for rebuilding the WTC site.” She explains that the agency has taken a practical approach and after several months of analysis, “have proposed what they believe is an achievable timetable, starting with the Memorial but including many key project elements.”

Berger

The report set a new timetable for completion of One World Trade Center, the Freedom Tower and the site’s entire public infrastructure. One World Trade Center, the Freedom Tower, is scheduled for completion between the second and fourth quarters of 2013, at a cost of $3.1 billion. The World Trade Center Memorial Plaza, including the inscribed names of the victims from the attacks on 9/11, and Feb. 26, 1993, is scheduled for completion by Sept. 11, 2011. Some street-level landscaping will be completed later. The underground museum portion of the project will be completed between the first and second quarters of 2013. The WTC Transportation Hub will be completed between the fourth quarter of 2013 and the second quarter of 2014, at a cost of $3.2 billion. A new Greenwich Street–the front door to Towers 2, 3 and 4, and a key access point to the Memorial–will be completed between the second and fourth quarters of 2012, years before the Port Authority anticipated. The Vehicle Security Center, which will serve as the underground access point for the commercial development on the site, will be completed between the first and third quarters of 2012, at a cost of $633 million.

LePatner

Berger notes that it is essential that this new timetable be maintained. “Lower Manhattan has proved time and again that if necessity is the mother of invention, adversity is the father,” she says. “Rebuilding the WTC site must advance Lower Manhattan as a global model for a 21st century central business district, a bustling and open commercial center with superior transportation, retail and cultural amenities. Lower Manhattan deserves and requires no less.”

Berger continues that “getting it done right on this timetable will require leadership from both the public and private sectors.” The revised timeline and budgets are the result of extensive, intense efforts during the past three months to look at every element of every project with the goal of providing aggressive yet realistic schedules and budgets, the Port Authority says in a statement. The report outlined resolutions of 15 key issues that have hindered rebuilding progress in the past, and for the first time provides intermediate milestones and will allow the public to track progress on the site.

Some key findings include:

• To ensure the Memorial Plaza will open on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the Port Authority developed a construction solution that allows the roof of the WTC Transportation Hub’s mezzanine to be built first instead of last as had been originally programmed. That roof will serve as the floor of the Memorial Plaza and allow the project to be accelerated.
• Due to “active, ongoing construction” that will occur on the WTC site after 2011, the Port Authority will work with the Memorial Foundation and the City to “ensure safe, controlled access to the Memorial after Sept. 11, 2011.”
• Construction of the WTC Transportation Hub has been significantly simplified through the strategic placement of columns and other conventional elements, while retaining the iconic design of architect Santiago Calatrava. This simplified design will save time, money and reduce construction risk.
• The increased cost of One World Trade Center, the Freedom Tower, is due to price escalation and project changes, including increasing the size of the observation deck from one to two levels and reducing the restaurant to one level to accommodate the projected number of visitors to the rooftop location.
• A series of resolutions, including the settling of a land claim with St. Nicholas Church and a security agreement with the City of New York, that will allow the Vehicle Security Center to be built in a more timely fashion.

• As GlobeSt.com previously reported, the assessment report was requested by Gov. David Paterson to identify key roadblocks to moving forward the WTC rebuilding in a faster and more cost effective way. The initial assessment, released in June, laid out 15 unresolved issues that would need to be addressed before accurate schedules and budgets could be developed. Although significant progress has been made in the rebuilding efforts, the Port Authority did previously admit that there were significant delays and cost overruns.

Barry LePatner, a construction cost management specialist, author, and construction attorney, tells GlobeSt.com that he thinks there will be many more cost overruns in the foreseeable future, and still has some concerns about the construction process. The Port Authority should be “taken to task for having announced plans of the transportation center without having fully developed a comprehensive program for the entire project,” he says. “The P.A. clearly acted too quickly to appease the politicians who were looking to feed off any news of work to be done at ground zero and who also ignored the reality of the complex of site conditions that miligate against an early understanding of what the true scope of the project was.” The Port Authority did not respond or comment on LePatner’s comments by deadline.