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Update: WTC Memorial and Transit Hub
Photo credit: Urbanite
Port Authority head Anthony Coscia acknowledged yesterday that the cost of the World Trade Center transit hub was ballooning, and said that the agency must adjust to new financial realities.
Yesterday it was reported that the cost of the soaring Santiago Calatrava designed transit hub at the site was ballooning to over $3 billion, close to $700 million more than the agency had originally budgeted.
“Those budget numbers were developed almost four years ago,” Coscia said. “We remain very committed to retaining the cost of that project as much as possible.”
The initial plan is in danger of being scaled back but officials would like to keep the grandeur of the architect’s original vision.
Coscia said the success of the transit hub was vital to the future of Lower Manhattan, comparing its presence there to that of Grand Central Station on the East Side.“That transit hub has a variety of different features to it that we think will have enormous generational benefit,” he said, adding that the agency must project for needs decades away.
“There are multiple examples of regrettable undertakings when people did build just for the present market and didn’t consider growth capacity.”
The agency chief also reiterated yesterday his commitment to finishing the September 11th memorial in time for the 10th anniversary of the attacks.
“We have got to stick to these dates. We have got to decided that this is now a rebuilding process,” he said. “We are not going to start rolling back down that hill again. Dates that are out there are dates that we have to meet.”
Yesterday, a scathing memo that Coscia wrote to his staff and to the Port Authority board was leaked to the press, urging no further construction delays.
---David Freedlander
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