February 7, 2006

Snøhetta Building Shrinking

The Norwegian firm, Snøhetta, is significantly changing its design for what was once the cultural complex at Ground Zero. The new scheme is now being described by officials as a visitors center. The project’s design has not yet been unveiled, but it will be about a fifth as large as the original building, according to the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation (WTCMF), which is heading the project’s development. Snøhetta was chosen to design the building, once set to hold the International Freedom Center and the Drawing Center, in fall 2004. That plan was scrapped last fall amid protest over the controversial content of both museums, as well as the building’s interference with the planned World Trade Center Memorial.

The visitors’ center will include ticketing, visitor services, and 9/11-related exhibition space, which will complement the material in the museum under the WTC Memorial, according to the WTCMF. The building will now take up about a fifth of the original’s space, shrinking from 250,000 square feet to about 60,000. Its location has also been changed: it will be shifted a little further south, although still near the corners of Greenwich and Fulton Streets, freeing up circulation around the Memorial plaza. Frank Gehry’s performing arts center, which is to be located across Fulton street from the visitors center, is still being planned, but no designs have been released since Gehry was chosen back in the fall of 2004.

7 WTC Gets Tenants

After waiting for some time to attract tenants to his 7 World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, developer Larry Silverstein has now leased space to three tenants. The building, located just north of Ground Zero, was designed by Skidmore Owings and Merrill, which is also designing the World Trade Center Freedom Tower.

In early January Silverstein announced that Ameriprise Financial, an asset planning and insurance company recently spun off from American Express, signed a ten-year lease for 20,000 square-feet of space in the building. The company’s New York office is to occupy about half of the building’s 39th floor. On January 25, officials from Beijing-based Vantone Real Estate signed a term sheet for 200,000 square feet of space— the top five floors—in the 1.7 million-square-foot building. The company has said that it will seek Chinese business firms to occupy the space. Back in December, the New York Academy of Sciences agreed to lease 40,000 square feet in the building.

Critics have been complaining for some time about the 52-story building’s long-standing vacancy—which many said was a harbinger of the entire site’s over-dependence on office space in a market that still seems to favor residential space. Many hold that the small amount of leased space is still a long way to go before the building becomes financially feasible. Meanwhile, rumors continue to swirl that Silverstein is engaged in talks with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to possibly cede control over some of his property. RECORD will report more on this story as it unfolds.

Sam Lubell