Rebuilding New York:
Reaching a Consensus

NEW YORK -- A surprising and potentially durable consensus is forming among normally fractious New York leaders over plans for the reconstruction of Lower Manhattan. The meeting of the minds points toward a greater variety of uses for the World Trade Center site, which had been dominated by offices.

Indeed, political opinion is moving increasingly against a plan championed by Larry Silverstein, who heads the group that owns a 99-year lease on the Trade Center, to rebuild all 12 million square feet of office space destroyed there on Sept. 11.

The early consensus on how Lower Manhattan should be rebuilt emerges in interviews with top political and business leaders here. It is a hopeful sign that the massive project may not fall prey to the city's famously faction-ridden politics.

"I'm beginning to get the feeling there is a consensus," says John Whitehead, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. co-chairman who heads the newly appointed Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corp. The trick will be holding the center. "It's when you get into the details that there might be differences," he says.

While basic in its outline, here is how it goes. A memorial to Sept. 11 victims is a given, of course, and may be the physical focal point of the World Trade Center site. Among the other areas of agreement:

• The project's focus will be much larger than the 16-acre World Trade Center site and could bring transportation and residential changes as far as Canal Street to the north and to the edge of the Hudson and East rivers.

• Public transportation won't simply be restored, but will be greatly upgraded. Improvements could include transportation advocates' fondest hopes: a Second Avenue subway project that would serve downtown; an extension linking PATH train lines from New Jersey to the subway system on the east side of downtown and the Long Island Railroad terminal in Brooklyn; and even a new LIRR commuter station, a big step in narrowing the area's competitive disadvantage to midtown. Of course, that could drag out reconstruction for many years.

• Downtown's residential community, which nearly doubled in the 1990s to 45,000 but was still considered embryonic on Sept. 11, will get some kind of boost, possibly subsidies for tenants or apartment developers around downtown.

• And the Trade Center itself will look a lot different from its former incarnation as an office-dominated complex surrounding a wind-swept plaza with a nondescript hotel and underground retail mall. Instead, a more mixed use for the site seems in store, including educational or cultural institutions, perhaps a performing-arts center or museum, possibly residential units, as well as retail and substantial office space.

People involved in discussions about the site say that at least six of the site's 17 acres would be needed for a memorial. Given that, about 6 million to 8 million square feet of office space make sense from a design perspective, if the market can support that.

Mr. Silverstein, who faces insurance-reimbursement issues, has tirelessly stumped for a project that would replace both the office space and the 500,000 square feet of destroyed retail space. But his efforts have angered powerful constituencies, including some families of Sept. 11 victims.

"Some of our members are so angry, they said they'd lie down on the ground if he ever tries to build something [besides a memorial] there," says Marian Fontana, president of the Widows' and Victims' Families Association. Also not helping: the ravaged demand for office space downtown raises doubts about whether the space he is advocating is needed.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has advocated postponing any decisions about commercial development until after a memorial is designed, and he even suggested compensating Mr. Silverstein's group by giving it development rights elsewhere in Manhattan.

In an interview, Mr. Whitehead, head of the redevelopment panel, stressed the importance of the memorial and outlined a more mixed vision for the site, mentioning residential construction and the possibility of buildings that included retail on the lower floors, topped by residential and office space. He also cautioned that much of the project will be driven by market demand for space in the next few years.

In response, Mr. Silverstein said in an interview: "If it becomes clear that the consensus is not in favor of 12 million square feet because it's not what's best for the city, then I clearly will go with the consensus."

A lot depends on how much federal aid is available beyond the $20 billion that President Bush made available for cleanup and renewal -- especially for the transportation projects. Right now, the House and Senate are conferring on bills to appropriate as much as $12.4 billion of the cleanup money before the end of the year, while an additional $5 billion is proposed as part of the much-debated stimulus package.

Of course, some political sniping is inevitable. But most parties at least agree on the think-big, transportation-first, mixed-use themes. Says Madelyn Wils, another member of the new downtown commission: "It's more important to make the area attractive so that people want to be there, rather than a place they can go to because they can't afford midtown."

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