A New Blueprint

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Nearly all the problems in the reconstitution of ground zero begin with one essential issue: Who will be in control? As the agency that helped create the World Trade Center, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a bistate-funded agency, owns the land on the WTC site, but it sold the "leaseholder" rights to the towers to Silverstein in 2001--six weeks before Sept. 11--for $3.2 billion.

That made Silverstein the landlord for the buildings (he would profit if he could increase the buildings' income). After 9/11 he became the custodian for a site of national mourning, a role that New York's politicians felt deeply uncomfortable with. "At the outset, the problem was the absence of a real leader," says Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner.

Complicating matters, both New York Governor George Pataki and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had staked political capital on carrying out their visions of ground zero. Pataki muscled Silverstein out of the initial planning, organizing a worldwide architecture competition, eventually won by Daniel Libeskind, who designed a complex, including a museum, a memorial, a performing-arts center, a transportation hub and five office towers, with what is now known as the Freedom Tower as the tallest. Bloomberg tried a bureaucratic end run, offering to swap with the Port Authority control of the city's airports for ground zero, in hopes of then removing Silverstein as developer. That effort failed, but it didn't stop Bloomberg from repeatedly calling for Silverstein to cede control. "We need this now to advance our economy and pay tribute to those who died there," Bloomberg said of the WTC rebuilding. "Not a decade and a half in the future, when it fits a developer's financial plan."

The April truce between Silverstein and the Port Authority resolves most of those turf issues. Silverstein gets to unload the Freedom Tower, widely seen as a white elephant and a money loser. Pataki can claim that construction is moving forward, in time for his expected presidential bid. Bloomberg, who has long pushed for adding residential space, will probably get that with Tower 5. There are yet some issues on the table, but the agreement was enough to clear the way for construction on the Freedom Tower to begin April 27.

Still, real estate insiders are skeptical about whether ground zero's master plan--10 million sq. ft. of office space and 600,000 sq. ft. of retail--has allowed emotion to rule over pragmatism. "The market itself doesn't have a need for this much space," says Richard Leone, president of the Century Foundation and a former chairman of the Port Authority. "[This plan] is about making beautiful buildings."