NEW YORK—Progress on the World Trade Center site was shown off Friday morning when Silverstein Properties led a tour of 4 World Trade Center.
The original 16-acre WTC site, occupied by the Twin Towers before the 9/11 attacks, will have four skyscrapers when construction is completed. A fifth already-completed smaller tower, 7 World Trade Center, sits just outside the site.
The structure on display during the tour, 4 World Trade Center, at 72 stories and 2.3 million square feet, will be the shortest skyscraper on the site.
About two-thirds of the building’s mix of retail and office space is currently leased, with a quarter of the office space designed to be the new headquarters for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
The WTC has been a complex site to work on, said Frank Hussey, superintendent for 4 World Trade Center.
Hussey, a calm man dressed in construction gear, said he helped clean up debris starting two weeks after the attacks. He’s shifted through positions on the site, previously working on 7 WTC and the towering 1 WTC, which will be the tallest structure on the site at 105 floors. Both 1 WTC and 4 WTC are slated to open next fall.
Hussey also worked with a private company assessing bedrock on the site. He looks forward to the completion of the next two towers.
“It’s good for the city, it’s good for the nation, and it’s good for the world,” he said.
Not all news is good regarding the World Trade Center site. Lack of financing has disrupted construction for the two other skyscrapers, 2 WTC and 3 WTC. But officials from Silverstein, the company developing the site, said that 7 WTC is already 100 percent leased and when 1 WTC and 4 WTC are completed next year, financing should be easier to obtain for the final two buildings, 2 WTC and 3 WTC.
The company wouldn’t quote specific rates for space in the buildings Friday, but Jeremy Moss, senior vice president of leasing for Silverstein, compared the area favorably to Midtown, which he portrayed as outdated.
Moss also said leases will run from 10 to 20 years and Janno Lieber, president of World Trade Center Properties, said the leasing arrangement will typically be one company per floor.
The retail space will be prime, said Moss, as it will draw traffic from the site’s buildings and the transportation hub, which will connect New Jersey PATH trains and 11 subway lines to the WTC office towers when completed in 2014. The site itself is situated close to 13 subway lines, ferries, and buses.
Design elements in 4 WTC include 13.5-foot-high panes of glass that span each floor, floor to ceiling with each side of the building only having four pillars. Panoramic views include the Empire State Building to the north and Governor’s Island to the south.
Silverstein staff have been leading many prospective tenant tours, according to Malcolm Williams, a senior construction executive. The space will be finished but left in a raw, basic state, so tenants will have a blank space to work with, Williams said, which is typical for new office space. Williams said he sees the “light at the end of the tunnel,” with construction nearing completion.
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