
With Boston Properties out of the picture in the bidding for a partnership stake in the 1,776-foot-tall One World Trade Center, just the Durst Organization and the Related Companies are left vying for the spot. “It’s a runoff between two different prototypes in the New York industry,” Kathryn Wylde, chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s the family-owned, multigenerational firm that the Dursts have built up on the one hand…and a model for an international, professionally run real-estate firm that Steve Ross has built at Related.” The board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will ultimately pick the winner, which will manage and market the building’s 2.6 million square feet of office space — about 1 million of which is already spoken for by government agencies — and will invest at least $100 million in the Ground Zero project formerly known as the Freedom Tower. The board is slated to meet with each developer over the next two weeks and to reach a decision by June 22. [WSJ]