For the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, answers on the Fulton St. Transit Center continue to be 30 days away.
That’s how many days the agency said it needed back in January, after announcing that it ran out of money to build the Fulton St. Transit Center. Within 30 days, the M.T.A. promised, a revised plan would be on the table.
But at a City Council hearing in April, the M.T.A. again deferred all questions about what would be built over the hole in the ground at Broadway and Fulton Sts., where the M.T.A. demolished a row of buildings to make way for the glass-domed hub. City Councilmember John Liu demanded answers, and the M.T.A. repeated assurances that answers were coming — in 30 days.
Then, at the Community Board 1 World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee Monday night, the M.T.A. gave another update on the project. In response to specific questions about what the M.T.A. is planning to build, Uday Durg, the project manager, said he didn’t know yet, but he’d have answers in three to four weeks.
Durg reassured the board that the M.T.A. would still include the promised 25,000 square feet of retail in the transit center, no matter the final configuration of the building. But the schedule for the project is still uncertain, he said.
Shortly before the April City Council hearing, Avi Schick, chairperson of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, floated the idea of moving the performing arts center slated for the World Trade Center site to the Fulton St. Transit Center. The idea looked unpopular from the start, but the city agreed to examine it, promising to have a final decision by the end of April.
As of Monday, Durg said he did not know where the discussions stood, but he acknowledged that the M.T.A. has to decide on the performing arts center before deciding on the type of building.
All the decisions will be made public, he said, in 30 days.
— Julie Shapiro
