Durst on board — begrudgingly — at Freedom Tower

While Douglas Durst had been a long-time opponent of the Freedom Tower — alleging that the planned tower had “an overly expensive design to be occupied by government agencies at overly expensive rents” — the developer has changed his mind, according to the Observer. Today, the Durst Organization is one of four bidders, along with Boston Properties, Related Companies and Hines Interests, angling for a stake in the Downtown building from the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey. All four have reportedly made $100 million offers for a non-traditional equity stake in the tower. “The building is going to go ahead no matter what anybody says,” Durst said, explaining his decision. “Similarly with the Times Square redevelopment project, we bitterly opposed that, but once the decision was made to go forward, we were a part of it.” That’s not to say that Durst is on board with the boom-time mindset that, according to him, still pervades the commercial real estate industry. When asked what he thinks the industry has learned from the recession, he replied, simply, “nothing.” [NYO] and [NYO]