Port Authority Cites Progress on WTC

NEW YORK CITY-Eight of the nine major rebuilding milestones on the World Trade Center have been achieved, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said in a report issued Wednesday. The authority also announced completion of the first quarterly milestone for 2009 with the removal of the ramp from street level into the WTC Memorial area.

Work on the remaining major milestone–completion of excavation work in the Tower 2 and Tower 4 areas–is continuing. In a release, the Port Authority says it’s working cooperatively with Silverstein Properties Inc., which is developing Towers 2 and 4, “to get this work done as quickly as possible.” Delays in completing the work led an arbitration panel ruling last month that the authority had not yet met its obligation to turn over a construction-ready site to SPI.

The milestones were established last October as part of the World Trade Center Assessment, a review of all the major public projects at Ground Zero. They encompass work on the WTC Transportation Hub, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the vehicle security center and the Freedom Tower, also known as One World Trade Center.