NEW YORK CITY-In an effort to re-attach the eight-million-square-foot World Financial Center back to the street grid, Brookfield Office Properties rolled out a $250 million retail redevelopment plan for the site, which will include upscale fashion tenants, a European-style marketplace and new waterfront dining. Totaling approximately 200,000 square feet of retail and public space, the property’s crowing jewel will be a new glass pavilion at West Street, where up to three anchor retail spaces will be created directly across from the 9/11 Memorial.

With a burgeoning residential population, strong office activity and 10 million tourists expected to visit the World Trade Center in the fall, Brookfield’s Dennis Friedrich, president and chief investment officer, said the improvements are coming at a “perfect time” for Lower Manhattan. “For all the positive attributes of the area, it is still very underserved when it comes to the retail arena,” he said, unveiling the project at a press conference on Thursday afternoon. Construction will begin in October 2011 and the project will be completed in 2013. “There is no doubt that this area is a major retail growth district in New York City, and with the major changes we have planned, this is going to be an even greater area for New York.”

To the east of the World Financial Center, the West Street glass pavilion--to be designed by Pelli Clark Pelli, the original designer of the site’s iconic Winter Green--will connect to new mass transit linkages at the 800,000-square-foot World Trade Center Transportation Hub, the $1.4 billion MTA Fulton Street Transit Center and an underground pedestrian walkway to the office complex. On the inside of the building, the historic staircase overlooking the World Trade Center will remain, while 90,000 square feet of in-line international fashion retailers and up-and-coming New York bands will be added to the existing Winter Green.