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Governor outlines vision for Lower Manhattan
From Phil Hirschkorn
NEW YORK (CNN) -- The first New York governor to move his office out of the World Trade Center wants to be the first tenant in the main tower on the rebuilt site. Gov. George Pataki pledged Thursday to relocate his Manhattan offices to an iconic 1,776-foot tower designed by architect Daniel Libeskind, whose master site plan will guide the rebuilding effort. In an expansive speech laying out an aggressive timetable for rebuilding the 16-acre Trade Center site and Lower Manhattan areas surrounding it, Pataki said the frame of the Libeskind skyscraper, which he dubbed the Freedom Tower, will be completed by the September 11, 2006, the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attack that toppled the 110-story twin towers. Pataki said, "2006 will be the year New Yorkers reclaim their skyline." It will also be the final year of Pataki's third term in office. The spindle-shaped tower is expected to contain 2 million square feet of office space, a fraction of the 11 million square feet in the old Trade Center, but a sizable amount considering there is currently 12 million square feet of vacant commercial space in Lower Manhattan. "We will lead by example, and I invite the business community to follow suit," Pataki said. He said the tower should be ready for occupancy at the end of 2008. The owner of the Trade Center land, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, will likely be the tower's anchor tenant. Joseph Seymour, the executive director of the transportation agency, said he expects the Port Authority to occupy at least 500,000 square feet, or one-quarter of the new tower. "The Port Authority employees lost their home," Seymour said. "I think they all want to come back here." Trade Center leaseholder, Larry Silverstein, is embroiled in litigation seeking the upper end of $3.5 billion to $7 billion from his insurers, funds he has vowed to allocate to rebuilding. Silverstein said he "certainly expects to" build the Libeskind tower. He is already developing the first office building to rise from the ashes of September 11 -- a 52-story rebuilding of what was 7 World Trade Center, immediately north of Ground Zero. That building, with more than 1.5 million square feet, is scheduled to be ready for occupancy in 2005. The Libeskind plan, chosen in February with enthusiastic backing from Pataki and his appointees, allocates land for retail space and additional office space, as the market demands. Pataki outlined a fast schedule for redeveloping the Trade Center area, endorsing a number ideas previously proposed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and activists involved in the process. Chief among these ideas is a major new train station in Lower Manhattan that would link the maze of city subway lines and commuter rails to New Jersey. Such a station is part of the Libeskind plan, along with a performing arts center, a museum, and a memorial to the approximately 3,000 people killed on September 11. Pataki advocated expanding ferry service and constructing a rail link to the metropolitan area's three major airports -- LaGuardia, John F. Kennedy, and Newark Liberty. "This is not a theoretical proposal destined for the archives of state government. This will be carried out," Pataki said. Federal funds, initially $4.5 billion from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will pay for a large part of the rebuilding vision. A temporary station housing the rebuilt commuter lines that carried 65,000 people a day to and from New Jersey is scheduled to reopen by the end of the year. The governor directed the agency overseeing rebuilding, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, to spend $50 million over the next six to 12 months on projects to improve the neighborhood's quality of life, such as street beautification and restoring pedestrian bridges from the Trade Center site to the adjacent World Financial Center. Pataki made his remarks before the Association for a Better New York at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Battery Park, five blocks away from Ground Zero. In January 2002, the Ritz became the first new building to open after the attacks. New York's governors, based in the capital of Albany, maintained New York City offices inside the Trade Center's south tower from the early 1970s until Pataki was elected in 1994. His predecessor, Mario Cuomo, was the first tenant to move back into the Trade Center after the 1993 terrorist truck bombing. A spokeswoman said Pataki had moved his city office to midtown Manhattan to save the taxpayers money on lower rent.
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