NEW YORK | 175 Greenwich St. | 1,079 FT | 80 FLOORS

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by drumz0rz

Looks like they're preparing to cap it...

Why would they be doing that in the midst of trying to get financing, and a tenant signed in hand?

[weidncol]

Yes, those materials do not appear to be for capping the core..

[uaarkson]

Originally Posted by drumz0rz

Looks like they're preparing to cap it...

Those materials could be for any of a thousand different operations. Please don't pretend to know more than you do, it turns these threads into garbage for weeks.

[Perklol]

Everyone makes mistakes. It's okay ...

[amhernandez2012]

Do you think they are setting up scaffolding to work on the core? Could they be raising it in the coming weeks?

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by amhernandez2012

Do you think they are setting up scaffolding to work on the core? Could they be raising it in the coming weeks?

It's hard to say what they are doing. With an anchor tenant signed this building should start to rise soon, but we won't know its final fate until the PA hearing takes place. I'd like to think that the PA will vote in favor of WTC3 for several reasons, but who knows what that fiscal black hole is thinking...

[Duck From NY]

[NYguy]

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...-is-a-good-one

New WTC deal is a good one
The deal is a chance for the Port Authority to strengthen itself and downtown.


Editorial
April 11, 2014

The Port Authority board faces a huge decision at its April 23 meeting: whether to alter its agreement with Silverstein Properties for the construction of 3 World Trade Center. Naysayers charge that Silverstein is asking for a better deal than it got in 2010, when the authority, city and state provided $390 million in backstop financing. They also warn that the authority is deviating from its core duty of maintaining the area's transportation infrastructure.

But the renegotiated deal now ready for a board vote would not impair the Port Authority's ability to carry out that mission—and even may improve it.

Here's the quandary: Despite recently finding an anchor private-sector tenant to occupy 515,000 square feet in the skyscraper, Silverstein can't get a construction loan to erect the 80-story tower. So the developer wants authority backing for $1.2 billion in tax-exempt bonds to help finance the speculative office building.

The Port Authority would gain the right to foreclose on the 3 WTC property within 90 days if Silverstein defaults. That is no small benefit, as the agency would get a $2 billion asset for half-price.

Silverstein also would have to secure $450 million in private financing, up from $300 million in the current deal; those investors would further encourage the developer to fill the tower rather than continue holding out for sky-high rents at the World Trade Center complex.

This is hardly a better deal for Silverstein Properties. Rather, it is the only deal the developer can make to complete the project on time and secure the legacy of its principal, 82-year-old Larry Silverstein. And the Port Authority is now poised to realize big benefits.

The new bonds, backed by the right to foreclose, would replace $200 million in riskier financing that the agency signed on for under the 2010 deal. The authority would also reap $329 million in cash. And the influx of tenants would increase ridership on its money-losing PATH system and sales at new retail developments tied to the trade center and transit hub. The Port Authority would become more able, not less, to fulfill its mission of investing in the region's bridges, tunnels and other transportation infrastructure.

Fears that 3 WTC would create a glut of office space, depressing rents at the complex, are overblown. Leasing activity downtown is heating up. And tenants would not occupy the tower before 2019, by which time the authority's signature building, 1 World Trade Center, should be full.

By approving the deal at its board meeting next week, the Port Authority would strengthen its financial position and enhance the promising future of lower Manhattan.

[Hypothalamus]

As of April 14th, 2014 (7PM EST)...


EarthCam

[NYC GUY]

This may be a dum question but if this starts vertical contruction again will they have to replace the open rebar on the top? Cause I feel like leaving it there in the open would weaken it.

[NYguy]

http://www.northjersey.com/news/new-...tment-1.997013

New York PA commissioner says proposed $1.2B World Trade Center Tower is bad investment


By SHAWN BOBURG
April 15, 2014

One of the Port Authority’s newest commissioners is campaigning against a proposal to put $1.2 billion behind construction of a private tower planned for the World Trade Center site, calling an upcoming vote a “defining moment” for the embattled agency. New York Commissioner Kenneth Lipper, a Wall Street executive and former deputy mayor under Ed Koch who joined the board in June, said the agency should instead find a way to pay for a new bus terminal in midtown Manhattan.

The public debate between Lipper and other commissioners who are supportive of the additional investment in the World Trade Center represents a rare spark of dissent among the agency’s board members and could foreshadow the first split vote by the 12-member board in years. It comes at a time when the agency is trying to move beyond the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal and questions about its transparency and commissioners’ apparent conflicts of interest.

A vote on financing for the long-stalled tower, 3 World Trade Center, planned by developer Larry Silverstein, is expected April 23.

Proponents say the proposal to guarantee $1.2 billion in construction loans for Silverstein’s tower would help complete the site in lower Manhattan. Silverstein has been unable to get private financing. And that, Lipper says, is an indication that the tower is a bad investment until the market for office space in lower Manhattan firms up.

“If you ask me for a reason to do it, I can find none,” Lipper told The Record’s editorial board on Tuesday. “The fact that they don’t want to put up money,” he said about bankers, “is indicative of an economic reality and should be a warning to the Port Authority, not catnip.”

Instead, Lipper is pushing for a new Midtown bus terminal to replace the cramped building that increasingly houses long lines of commuters waiting for buses to make their way through the logjam on city streets and in the Lincoln Tunnel. The parking garage for buses was scrapped from the Port Authority’s long-term building plans three years ago. The bus terminal, a money loser, is subsidized by the agency’s toll bridges and tunnels but was used by more than 65 million people in 2012.

Vice Chairman Scott Rechler, also an appointee of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is pushing the financing proposal for the Silverstein tower. Declining to construct the tower would stunt growth in lower Manhattan, Rechler has said, arguing that guaranteeing Silverstein’s loan would not affect the agency’s budget unless Silverstein defaults on the note. If Silverstein were to default, the agreement would allow the Port Authority to foreclose on the tower.

Rechler, a real estate executive, said Tuesday that the proposal is more beneficial to the Port Authority than a 2010 agreement with Silverstein that the new proposal would replace if approved. Under the 2010 deal, the agency would loan Silverstein $200 million, whereas the new proposal would not have any negative effect on the agency's budget in the short-term, he said. Proponents claim there is sufficient demand for the additional office space and that a default is unlikely.

Rechler also said that tying the tower proposal to the bus terminal is misleading because the agency would not have the borrowing capacity to pay for the bus terminal regardless of whether the World Trade Center proposal is approved.

[Perklol]

Build it! There asymmetrical shoulders is the defining feature of this building.

[weidncol]

I hate to say it, but I have a very bad feeling they will vote no for this for the simple fact the PA needs to spend money on the transportation for the city.

[N830MH]

Originally Posted by weidncol

I hate to say it, but I have a very bad feeling they will vote no for this for the simple fact the PA needs to spend money on the transportation for the city.

I have a bad feeling about this. I'm afraid that they won't be built.

[chris08876]

The Port Authority is a joke. Now, the Hudson Yards, they know how to get stuff done right (Related and Oxford).

[N830MH]

Originally Posted by chris08876

the port authority is a joke. Now, the hudson yards, they know how to get stuff done right (related and oxford).

[Dale]

Originally Posted by N830MH

???

[ILNY]

Originally Posted by chris08876

The Port Authority is a joke. Now, the Hudson Yards, they know how to get stuff done right (Related and Oxford).

The Port Authority is public entity created to operate ports and other public infrastructure and not corporation like Related/Oxford whose main goal is to build towers. As much as I would like WTC 3 to rise I think Port Authority should spend money on public projects (bus terminal, subway, tunnels) and not on towers which it cannot manage resulting in billions of dollars over budget. If there is demand for office space, Silverstein should have no problem with getting adequate financing without the need of public funds. NYC is different from China or Dubai because it builds towers when there is demand for them and not because they can be build.


Port Authority’s scandalous real estate investments: OPINION
April 22, 2014 02:25PM

http://therealdeal.com/blog/2014/04/...ments-opinion/

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s real scandal isn’t the lane-closing on the George Washington Bridge — it is a decades-long practice of diverting the body’s funds into real estate investments, according to New York Times columnist Joe Nocera.

The Port Authority, Nocera wrote yesterday, is charged with improving transportation infrastructure in both states. Yet tolls creep up while needed funds are funneled into real estate projects like the World Trade Center, which claimed at least $7.7 billion in the rebuilding of the area around Ground Zero after Sept. 11. An additional $4 billion “went to an over-the-top PATH station,” Nocera opined, while another $3.3 billion went to the building of One World Trade Center.
“Whether or not building commercial skyscrapers was the right way to rebuild Ground Zero, what can be said for sure is that the Port Authority has shown, yet again, that it doesn’t belong in the real estate business,” Nocera wrote. One World Trade center, he added, is the “most expensive high-rise ever built in America, and it is costing Port Authority a fortune.” And yet only 55 percent of the property’s 2.6 million square feet have been leased, “and most of that is at significant loss,” Nocera wrote.

His arguments then circle back to Silverstein Properties’ current push for an additional $1.2 billion in loans to build 3 World Trade Center, which Nocera referred to as Silverstein’s “funder of last resort.”

The debate surrounding the potential loan is unusual, according to Nocera, who wrote that in the past commissioners typically voted unanimously to approve such ventures. But now, with a glut of empty office space in the area, the market is projecting the message that this is not the time for another commercial skyscraper downtown.

“If, after that, Silverstein gets his loan guarantees, well, there will finally be no doubt that a scandal has taken place,” Nocera wrote. [NYT] — Julie Strickland

[Zapatan]

Hmm none of this sounds good.

I'm really starting to believe these towers will never be built in my lifetime, and I'm 25.

[fimiak]

This institution shouldn't even exist. They have botched so many aspects of this project its incredible.