http://www.nypost.com/seven/09052007...zero_to_60.htm
GROUND 'ZERO TO 60'
WTC TOWER WORK SURGES AHEAD AT LAST
By TOM TOPOUSIS
September 5, 2007
What a difference a year makes, even at Ground Zero.
Once dogged by bitter fights over how to rebuild the World Trade Center,
construction there is finally booming, with more than 600 hardhats pouring
concrete, blasting rock and raising steel in a bid to fully rebuild the site by 2012.
The Freedom Tower - the first skyscraper to rise at Ground
Zero - has reached street level with the setting of jumbo steel beams that
will form the below-grade base. Next year, the tower's frame will begin to rise
above street level.
Alongside the Freedom Tower, hardhats have built 121 out of 150 concrete
footings for the World Trade Center Memorial and Museum, with steel
expected to be shipped in later this year to begin raising the memorial to
street level.
The $2 billion transit hub designed by Santiago Calatrava is also under way.
Perhaps the least heralded project at the site is the massive, 80-foot-deep
excavation of the eastern half of the trade center to create a
watertight "bathtub" for three Church Street office towers.
Most of the work began after last year's agreement between Ground Zero
developer Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority, which owns the site. The
bistate agency is in charge of the bulk of the project, with Silverstein
concentrating on three towers.
"We've restored a level of confidence to the rebuilding process and that's
translated to the marketplace," said PA Chairman Anthony Coscia.
He said that the reconstruction project has helped fuel renewed interest in
the downtown office market, where demand for space is booming.
"These buildings will be built and the site will be restored," Coscia told The
Post during a recent interview.
Added together, $16 billion worth of construction will take place on the 16-
acre site, making the World Trade Center the most expensive and most
complicated construction project in a city brimming with tower cranes.
Because so many projects are being squeezed into the site, each one is
linked to the other through shared subterranean structures - from piping to
concourses to underground railroad and subway lines - further complicating
the work.
"It's not an easy project to build," said Coscia, who likened the engineering
effort to building a "subgrade Rubik's Cube."
Construction so far is mostly limited to the western half of the site, inside the
70-foot-deep bathtub that was built to contain the foundations of the Twin
Towers. A second bathtub is being excavated on the eastern half of the site
for Silverstein's towers 2, 3 and 4.
Silverstein, who last year completed World Trade Center 7 just across Vesey
Street from the WTC's main campus, expects to begin construction of his
three towers in 2008.
"You ain't seen nothing yet," Silverstein said.
His design team of 120 architects and engineers has been working at a studio
on the 11th floor of 7 World Trade Center.
"We will hit the ground running when the sites are handed over to us in
January," he said.
One setback for the reconstruction is the fiasco at the Deutsche Bank
Building, which is being taken down by the Lower Manhattan Development
Corp. a block south of the WTC. Two firefighters died battling a blaze inside
the toxic tower last month.
The Port Authority, which will take over the Deutsche Bank site once the
tower is removed, has an agreement to sell it to JPMorgan Chase as a fifth
WTC tower beside a park and new home for St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church.
