BY ALINE REYNOLDS | Construction at the World Trade Center is forging ahead as planned. That was the message the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and Silverstein Properties conveyed at the Community Board 1 W.T.C. Redevelopment Committee meeting on Monday, Oct. 17.
“There was a great deal of coordination [involved] for the success of the opening of the 9/11 Memorial on the 10th anniversary,” said Quentin Brathwaite, the Port Authority’s assistant director of W.T.C. construction. “With those dates behind us, the Port Authority has continued its renewed focus to the perimeter of the site.”
One W.T.C., which is slated to be topped out sometime next spring, is now 86 floors high. With close to 1,000 workers on the project, the building, Brathwaite said, has become a “city within a city.”
“What’s really amazing is that the building is really commanding even more of a presence in the community,” said Brathwaite. “From almost every vantage point, you see the tower rising — not only from within Community Board 1, but as far west as New Jersey and as far east as Queens and Brooklyn.”
The Port Authority is completing foundation work in the area just north of Cedar Street for the future Vehicle Security Center, which is set to open in 2013. Installation of the steel for the V.S.C. is underway, as is the continued excavation of the 130 Liberty St. site.
“The removal of the soil will lead to the construction activity where we will blast in the vicinity of the [Number One subway line] box,” said Brathwaite — an endeavor that will require a great deal of coordination with the Metropolitan Transit Authority.
Meanwhile, below-grade work for the W.T.C. Transportation Hub is also underway without interruptions to the temporary PATH station, Brathwaite noted. The transit center, once completed, will be roughly the size of three football fields.
The building’s interior is congruent architecturally with its glass-and-steel “wings” exterior, according to Brathwaite.
“The choice of Santiago [Calatrava] as an architect for this project is so fitting,” he said, “because his building above grade really embodies the sense of freedom that’s associated with the doves and wings in flight.”
The transition from one subway platform to the next will be seamless, Brathwaite assured. “
With respect to Route 9a, the Port Authority plans to make an “appropriate detour” for the bicycle route that once aligned with the west side of the highway.
“As we move closer to the end of the year,” said Brathwaite, “the Port will complete its construction of an underpass — which will be the east-west connector — then turn over ownership of the bike path and the remaining construction to Brookfield [Office] Properties.”
Towers Two, Three, Four and Seven
Malcolm Williams, construction manager for Silverstein Properties, the developer for Towers Two, Three and Four, said Tower Four is the farthest along among the W.T.C. buildings, with over 60 percent of the construction work already completed.
“We’re starting to see the building taking the shape in the skyline of New York City,” said Williams.
The building’s steel skeleton is 54 stories high, and its below-grade mechanical system is 90 percent complete. The building will be finished in late 2013.
Construction of Two W.T.C., meanwhile, is currently above grade and continuing on schedule, according to Williams. Phase one of the project, he said, is slated for completion in the second quarter of 2012.
“Coordination is continuing every day in terms of structural and mechanical coordination [with the Transportation Hub], and in terms of making sure all the pieces of the puzzle fit,” said Williams.
Tower Three is progressing equally well, Williams said, and is being built differently from Towers Two and Four. The building’s concrete core is being built out prior to the floors and steel framing. The tower’s concrete is now above grade, said Williams, and the second floor will be finished by the end of October.
Tower Seven, meanwhile, which was completed in 2006, is now fully occupied by tenants, according to Williams, since the recent lease-signing by investment firm MSCI for the building’s 48th floor.
“We’re very proud of that building — not only as a company, but as an anchor part of the W.T.C. site,” said Williams. “It shows that companies have come back down and want to have a place here in Lower Manhattan.”
