The Port Authority’s New Year’s Eve admission that it would miss the Jan. 1 deadline to finish preparing two World Trade Center office sites can be seen several ways.
The $300,000-a-day fines going to developer Larry Silverstein are a steep bill that is ultimately paid by the public, but the Port is probably right that it’ll amount to something close to a wash, since the authority will not have to pay a $10-million, on-time bonus to its contractors, and officials are confident they’ll have the sites ready early in February.
The fines add discipline to a project that has needed it, and are warranted in their own right since the delays lead to real costs for Silverstein.
If the delay finishing the eastern bathtub only amounts to a few weeks, it’ll truly be a blip on the screen of a long, tortured process to redevelop the W.T.C. The two Church St. towers, as we have said before, are much more important than the Freedom Tower under construction, since they will reconnect the W.T.C. back with Lower Manhattan and provide much needed retail space. So a month or two difference will not matter much.
It is much more troubling that it took the Port over five years to begin constructing the bathtub, and that under the Pataki administration, the Port sat on the federal money to build it for over a year.
More recently under Gov. Spitzer, the Port should have been willing to admit they were going to miss the deadline sooner rather than waiting to the last minute to ‘fess up. More importantly, the rush to make the deadline, and now the rush to end the fines, is causing undue hardship on a small number of residents who live right next to the loudest construction.
The wee-hour jack hammering and nearly round-the-clock work can be mitigated with things like better sound proofing windows. There is about $16 billion worth of construction going on at the site and for the Port to nickel and dime this small group of residents, as we understand they are doing, is unconscionable.
Over the last year under Anthony Shorris — Spitzer’s choice to run the Port Authority as executive director — community relations have gotten better, but there seems to be some sliding back recently.
We hope that represents a temporary development since construction activity at the site and other parts of Lower Manhattan is expected to increase this year. The Port can, and should do more to help W.T.C. residents.
The next five years will either see unprecedented construction activity in Lower Manhattan or massive delays.
The latter scenario will be bad no matter what. The former can be something to be proud of if the communication and accommodation is as steady as the work. The bathtub completion is a good place to test these new waters.
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