Design Winner Now Faces Hurdles

Calling the plan a “bold blueprint” to renew Lower Manhattan and restore New York’s spirit, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and other officials announced Thursday that architect Daniel Libeskind’s sweeping design had won an international competition to guide the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site.

Libeskind’s victory, news of which had leaked the night before, was formally unveiled at a packed Manhattan news conference that capped a nearly 18-month planning process. New York Gov. George E. Pataki said the Polish-born architect’s proposal -- which features a 1,776-foot spire, angular office towers and a huge open space framed by the concrete walls of the original World Trade Center foundations -- marks “the end of the beginning” of a push to rebuild, perhaps within 10 years.

But the final design of ground zero may be nothing like the glittering images that were displayed Thursday at the Winter Garden, directly across the street from the World Trade Center site. Like a screenwriter who sells a script to a Hollywood studio, Libeskind may soon discover that the final product is unrecognizable to him.

“This is just the beginning,” Bloomberg conceded, referring to the fiscal, engineering, planning and political hurdles ahead. “We have a long road before us.”

With construction of office buildings not set to begin for several years, there are unresolved wrangles over who controls the land and has the power to approve a final design.

Some family and victim groups that have given Libeskind’s plan tentative support are still opposed to the idea of building a massive public transportation terminal underneath the foundations of any new development.

The winning design calls for a large public park in which a memorial could be constructed.

Yet there is no indication of who will pay to construct such a monument. Given New York City’s $4-billion deficit, there is similar mystery over where money would come from to build a projected performing arts center near the memorial site.

And the answer to the biggest question of all -- how much office space to construct -- may depend on the state of Manhattan’s downtown real estate market years from now. While some developers believe New York must, at a minimum, restore the 10 million square feet of office space that was lost in the Sept. 11 attacks, others say this would further glut an already overbuilt office market.

“This is a momentous day in the history of our city,” said Pataki, who along with Bloomberg had convinced other officials to approve Libeskind’s plan over a competing design offered by the so-called Think group, led by architects Rafael Vinoly and Frederic Schwartz. “We will not be defined at this site by the hatred of a single day, but by the spirit of unity that followed, and which grows even stronger today.”

As he spoke, however, Pataki was looking directly at developer Larry Silverstein, who signed a 99-year lease to operate the World Trade Towers six weeks before they were destroyed.

In recent weeks, Silverstein has voiced opposition to the Libeskind and Think designs, saying they didn’t encourage construction of enough office space. The developer has reason to be concerned, because he continues to pay $120 million annually in rent to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the land.

Although Silverstein will not make the final political and economic decision about what to build at the site, the developer holds some powerful cards in the planning process. He sat in the front row at Thursday’s event, shaking hands with an array of politicians and members of Lower Manhattan Development Corp., making his presence felt. Despite his previous criticism, he offered an olive branch to Libeskind after the winning selection was announced, saying he “looked forward to working with the architect” and was hopeful an economically feasible plan could be worked out.

Meanwhile, Silverstein doesn’t know yet how much money he will have available to rebuild, a problem that could directly affect the feasibility of Libeskind’s design. The developer is locked in a bitter court fight with several insurance companies over how much compensation he deserves as a result of the terrorist attacks. While the insurance firms say he should get $3.6 billion for the coordinated airplane assaults, Silverstein has argued that the destruction of each tower was a separate act, entitling him to $7.2 billion. The outcome of the legal battle will not be known for months.

Libeskind, who on Thursday compared his proposed 1,776-foot building and spire to the Statue of Liberty’s upward-spiraling arm, hopes to include a restaurant and observatory deck on the 110th floor. He also wants to top off the structure with a huge antenna to replace broadcasting facilities that were atop the original towers.

Yet numerous critics, including politically influential family and victim group leaders, have questioned the wisdom of building such a large tower, wondering whether companies would want to lease space in such a tall building after Sept. 11.

Others complained about the use of subterranean space at ground zero to build an estimated 500,000 square feet of retail shops and a huge public transit terminal.

“I’m still shocked that they would even consider putting a big new terminal for buses, subways and trains underneath the soil where 2,800 people were killed,” said Carol Ashley, who lost a daughter in the terrorist attacks and attended the Winter Garden event. “This design idea would basically defile a very sacred space.”

Given the multitude of colliding priorities for the site, some city officials have floated a plan whereby New York would give the Port Authority the land under La Guardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport in exchange for the World Trade Center acreage. Bloomberg in particular has said such a deal would simplify planning for the site. But there is no guarantee Port Authority officials will relinquish ownership of what has become one of the most valuable plots of land in the United States, and they have continued to play a key role in approving any development at the site.

In a burst of optimism, Bloomberg suggested that construction might transform the site within five years. He envisioned a performing arts center, a museum and memorial site on now-vacant land; he talked of dynamic new buildings and a soaring spire that would be a “dramatic new icon” for the New York skyline.

But Bloomberg also noted that a Web site soliciting opinions on what to do with the site has recorded 70 million hits. “Everyone has strong ideas about what needs to be done here,” he said. “That’s what democracy is all about.”

With so many looming questions and intangibles, even Libeskind seemed to recognize that his euphoria over winning a design competition may soon give way to the hard work of steering his plan through turbulent waters. His plan to preserve the so-called bathtub, or walls including the towers’ original foundations, was changed in recent weeks from a 70-foot excavation to a 30-foot-deep pit, in response to engineering concerns and plans to construct a transit hub underneath the site.

Just how much financial pressures and engineering questions continue to alter the winning design remains to be seen. But in a light moment at Thursday’s event, Alfonso Jackson, deputy secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, noted that the federal government has funded Lower Manhattan Development Corp.’s operations to date. “Somebody has to pay for all this,” he joked.