Silverstein has faith that new WTC buildings will be fully leased

Larry Silverstein

Developer Larry Silverstein is certain that the new buildings at the World Trade Center will end
up fully leased, he said on NY1’s Inside City Hall. Tower 7 is
already fully leased, and Silverstein said he thinks other the
buildings will soon follow. He said he is already in negotiations with
several large firms to lease space in the towers for “large blocks of
space in Tower 4.”

For Tower 3, he said he is in discussions with large
tenants who require major space in a new building because they use a
significant amount of technology, and are interested in a “green”
building that is LEED-certified. Since the buildings that are
currently home to many companies are 60 years and older and are hard
to retrofit, there is a massive movement to new buildings, he said. He
also pointed out that no other place in New York will be served by so
many mass transit options.

Silverstein noted that out that after the terror attacks, a lot of
people thought new skyscrapers at the site would never attract enough
businesses to be successful. “There was a massive exodus from Lower
Manhattan at that moment in time. As I watched this I said to myself,
‘We’ve gotta stop this, and the only way to stop this is to start
rebuilding,'” Silverstein said. Today, Silverstein will join Mayor
Michael Bloomberg, WTC architect Daniel Libeskind, and Chris Ward,
executive director of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, at
an event showcasing the progress of the reconstruction. The full video
of Silverstein’s interview is here. [NY1]