The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation will allocate $800,000 to turn the construction site where the Deutsche Bank building once stood into a gathering plaza for tourists visiting the Sept. 11 memorial slated to open this September, DNAinfo reported. The plaza will be in place until construction at the World Trade Center is finished, and the area fully reopens to the public. Joe Daniels, president of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, said the plaza will alleviate traffic at the memorial’s West Street entrance and will ensure surrounding streets and sidewalks are not over-crowded. Citing its own inexperience, the LMDC is leaning on the Sept. 11 memorial foundation or the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey to build the plaza. [DNAinfo]

An ex-employee of the construction firm blamed for the deaths of two firefighters in 2007′s Deutsche Bank Building blaze is getting out of prison soon after serving his minimum two-and-a-half-year sentence, according to the Post. The former John Galt Corp. purchasing agent, Robert Chiarappa, wasn’t charged with manslaughter, but instead was revealed to have stolen $1.2 million from the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. and Arch Insurance Group during the building’s deconstruction project after authorities launched an investigation into the cause of the fire. [more]

Though the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. acquired the Deutsche Bank building damaged on Sept. 11 and is slated to give it to the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey next month, LMDC may have other plans. “There’s supposed to be a land swap,” Avi Schick, LMDC chairman, told Crain’s. Schick is referring to a formal agreement that was part of the World Trade Center master plan in 2003 which calls for the PA to get 130 Liberty Street when the bank is torn down and to give the WTC Memorial Foundation the approximately eight-acre site where the memorial and museum are being built. Schick may want to use the property as leverage to advance the LMDC’s agenda for the site’s development. Comments

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Just one day after the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. released a request for proposals for its new $17 million cultural and community enhancement fund, organizations are already submitting bids, Crain’s reported. The LMDC’s new fund is for projects that benefit the residents, workers and communities of Lower Manhattan. Money will be allocated in amounts ranging from $100,000 to $1 million, although “if there are meritorious proposals beyond $1 million, we will absolutely consider them,” said Julie Menin, director of LMDC. The $17 million is separate from the $200 million remaining from funding earmarked to revitalize Lower Manhattan after Sept. 11, 2001. Since it’s a separate pool of funds, organizations that don’t receive money from the larger fund can apply for the other. Applications are due Nov. 4 and will be evaluated by a committee, who Menin said will be looking for redevelopment projects and other proposals that will those are unemployed. [Crain's]

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The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. is expanding its aid program for small businesses plagued by public construction projects, the agency announced yesterday. According to the Tribeca Trib, the agency has upped the total amount of grant money it is making available to $6 million from $5 million and extended the program by five years, through 2015. Individual businesses can now receive up to $35,000 each through the program, up from $25,000 previously. As The Real Deal reported last month, merchants located along Second Avenue on the Upper East Side say business is down by as much as 40 percent due to subway construction in the area, but unfortunately for them, the LMDC’s program is limited to Lower Manhattan. Businesses with less than 50 employees located below Canal Street are eligible, provided they can prove a loss due to a public construction project within a block of their own address. [Tribeca Trib]

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As of December, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. still had yet to spend much of the $2 billion it received from the federal government after Sept. 11, 2001, the Downtown Express reported. The organization, which Mayor Mike Bloomberg has said should be shuttered and folded into the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center subsidiary, has earmarked $1.87 billion of the funds for specific projects, like the $140 million reconstruction of the East River Waterfront and the new, $23 million Spruce Street School. But it has spent only $1.33 billion of those earmarked funds so far, and the remaining $135 million is not committed to any project yet. The LMDC had also received another $783 million from the government for utility repairs, of which $159 million is not yet committed. Even more money could be left over if projects are completed ahead of schedule, or if Bloomberg’s calls for the LMDC to cease operations are heeded: the organization has set aside $14 million for its future administrative costs. [Downtown Express]

A letter sent to Bovis Lend Lease ordering the company to remove its team from the Deutsche Bank demolition project due to safety concerns has been made public, according to the Downtown Express. The letter, which David Emil, president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., sent Jan. 29, expressed doubts over whether the Bovis team would be able to complete the project according to protocol. “We are not comfortable that the present team can assure compliance with the plans going forward,” Emil said in the letter. “Therefore, we request that you make appropriate changes in Bovis senior staff immediately.” Click here to see full letter. [more]

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation is closing in on a major settlement with insurers of the former Deutsche Bank Building near the World Trade Center site, which was damaged on Sept. 11. The tower’s $200 million demolition and decontamination project has been ongoing for years, and a source told the Downtown Express that the impending settlement will call for the insurers to kick in “a significant sum,” though a spokesperson for the LMDC wouldn’t reveal the status of the negotiations or provide a dollar figure. The insurers, Allianz Global Risks U.S. Insurance Company and AXA Corporate Solutions, were obliged to pay 75 percent of the project’s costs above $45 million. That works out to roughly $113.5 million, of which they have paid just $63.5 million thus far. Demolition is expected to be completed before the end of the year, though a time line has not been set. The building was originally 40 stories tall, and workers are now taking down the 23rd floor. [Downtown Express]

Exactly two years after a deadly fire broke out at the Deutsche Bank
building in Lower Manhattan a demolition contractor charged with
manslaughter in the blaze has sued to foreclose on nearly $20 million
in mechanic’s liens on the building. The Bronx-based John Galt Corporation, along with two affiliated firms, filed the foreclosure suit in New York State Supreme Court Tuesday against
the property’s owner, the city-state agency Lower Manhattan Development
Corporation; the demolition construction manager Bovis Lend Lease LMB
and other entities. Galt is seeking payment of $19.6 million allegedly remaining unpaid
from a total of $73.7 million earned from the decontamination and
deconstruction work at the bank building at 130 Liberty Street. [more]