From left: Westfield CEO Peter Lowy, Port Authority Director Patrick Foye, retail at 4 WTC and the WTC Transportation Hub
By sending the first installment of a $612.5 million payment to the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, Westfield Group officially sealed the deal to take a 50 percent stake in the World Trade Center’s 460,000 square feet of retail space, the New York Post reported. [more]
Silverstein Properties CEO Larry SilversteinSilverstein Properties President and CEO Larry Silverstein appeared on CNBC yesterday to discuss the commercial property market in the city and his developments at the World Trade Center construction site (see after the jump).
Silverstein said prices were “off the charts again” and even higher than they were before the crash. “There’s a huge amount of investment capital looking for a home,” he said. “That investment capital comes from all over the world, and its looking to invest, where? In America. Where in America? New York City.” [more]
From left: renderings of 250 West 55th Street, Manhattan West and 51 Astor Place
The city’s low office vacancy rates and slowly rising rents are overshadowing a disturbing office leasing trend, according to the New York Post. Ground-up office projects have been unable to secure major tenants, which in turn has stifled development.
Yesterday’s news that Silverstein Properties might cap off 3 World Trade Center at seven stories because of its inability to land a tenant, is just the most recent example. [more]
3 WTC
Three World Trade Center is close to being topped off — 73 stories shorter than initially planned. Crain’s reported that if developer Larry Silverstein, president of Silverstein Properties, cannot find an office tenant for the planned 80-story tower by the end of the year, he’ll cap it off at seven stories and seek retail tenants to fill the structure.
After talks with UBS broke off Silverstein has not come close to finding a tenant, Crain’s said, but if one is found in time, Silverstein will resume construction as planned on 3 WTC with slight delays to the expected 2015 completion date. [more]
World Trade Center siteFrom the September issue: Construction crews have been working feverishly at the World Trade Center site in anticipation of the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks later this month.
But when families and friends of the victims gather there for the commemorative ceremony and the opening of the National September 11 Memorial, they will also see major progress at many of the buildings around them.
Indeed, lately — after years of delays and political infighting — steel has been rising rapidly at the 16-acre site.
Just to the north of the memorial, attendees will see the new $3.2 billion 1 World Trade Center, the most expensive office building ever constructed in the city, built to about the 80th floor. To the east, they will see the construction at three additional tower sites.
While much has been written about the progress at ground zero in a piecemeal fashion, this month, The Real Deal takes a closer at look how all of the pieces fit together — and how the finances pencil out for the developers. [more]
Switzerland’s largest lender, UBS AG, is in talks to move its Stamford, Conn.-based U.S. investment bank to Larry Silverstein’s planned 3 World Trade Center tower by 2015. A source told Bloomberg News that the bank, which currently has New York City offices at 299 Park Avenue and 1285 Sixth Avenue, would take around 800,000 square feet at the 71-story, 2.1 million-square-foot skyscraper, which will have an alternate address of 175 Greenwich Street and is one of four that Silverstein is planning for the site. UBS completed the move to its Stamford facility, which houses the world’s largest trading floor, in 2002. Comments
Larry Silverstein’s 3 World Trade Center is getting $285 million in leftover tax-exempt federal stimulus bonds from various local governments around New York State that have been unsuccessful in spending them before they expire at the end of the year, DNAinfo reported. The 71-story Tower 3, which is slated for completion in 2015, is expected to cost upwards of $2 billion. Gov. Paterson signed an executive order at the end of last week to allow the state to take back the rest of its Recovery Zone Facility Bonds from city and county governments and redirect them towards Tower 3. [more]
Larry Silverstein’s 3 World Trade Center may get public financing as part of the new, tentative deal with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, but an end to the bitter dispute over the rebuilding of Ground Zero won’t prevent even more project delays. The 2.5 million-square-foot office tower may not break ground atop a planned “retail podium” until 2020, according to the Post’s Steve Cuozzo. That’s because the public financing aid won’t be available before Silverstein meets certain equity and pre-leasing milestones — namely, raising $300 million in private equity for the tower and garnering 400,000 square feet worth of leasing commitments. He’ll have six years after the completion of the Port Authority’s World Trade Center Transportation Hub at the site to meet those standards — and the Hub isn’t slated for completion until at least 2014. [Post]
[more]
