Port Authority won't be Freedom Tower tenant  
Monday, September 18, 2006

By DAVID A. MICHAELS
STAFF WRITER

For three decades, the World Trade Center was the headquarters and icon of the Port Authority, the bi-state agency whose properties include the George Washington Bridge and Lincoln Tunnel.

But when the Freedom Tower inherits the trade center's title as the tallest building in New York City and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's preeminent asset, the agency's employees won't be working in it.  "Twice these people were the subject of that attack, and I am not going to ask them to move into that building," Port Authority Chairman Anthony R. Coscia said in a recent interview. "I'll resign, but I won't ask them to move into that building."  Instead, other government employees will be asked to work there, even if they prefer not to. The State of New York and the federal government announced Sunday that they would occupy up to 62 percent of the building, although their commitments are in the form of agreements that have not yet been turned into signed leases.

In recent interviews, former and current state and Port Authority employees expressed concern about returning to the site, which they worry would be a potential terror target.  "We don't want to go in that area, and the state employees who work in that area don't want to be in that area," said Pat Metzger, president of a local union that represents employees of the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, which lost 40 workers in the attacks. "It's very frightening."  Even if some employees would go back, the decision may be opposed by family members, said Charles F. McClafferty, a former chief financial officer for the Port Authority who survived the Sept. 11 attacks.  As harrowing as his experience was, it may have been worse for his wife, McClafferty said. The images she watched on television -- of people jumping from windows, and then buildings collapsing into swooping debris clouds that sent people running for their lives -- left her with the feeling that no one survived.  "No matter how comfortable I felt, my wife would be uncomfortable with it," he said. "She was sure I was in it when it collapsed." 

Lerlene Walker, a Port Authority employee who worked on the 70th floor of the north tower, said "good, bad and worse memories are still upon us." Coscia's promise, she said, reflects the anxiety of many employees.  "We would like to have a place we could call home again," she said. "But there is reluctance and apprehension to feel threatened. Are you setting yourself up to be a target?"
Some planning experts have said the wounds of the attacks are still too raw, and building the Freedom Tower now means rushing it into construction. The plan saddles taxpayers with obligations that would last well beyond the tenure of New York Gov. George Pataki, who is leaving office next year and has tied his legacy to it.  "It has a lot of politics behind it, but there does not seem to be a lot of market or common sense behind it," said Robert D. Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, an influential planning group almost as old as the Port Authority.  Asked recently if politicians had strong-armed public agencies into filling the building, Coscia said: "I wouldn't be comfortable using that characterization, but I couldn't deny that's what it is."

In a statement on Sunday, Pataki he was proud to announce the state and federal commitments to the Freedom Tower, which would be the centerpiece of a resurgent neighborhood teeming with glass skyscrapers, a rebuilt PATH station and the World Trade Center memorial.  "We have made tremendous progress in the past six months on the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site," Pataki said.
Eliot Spitzer, considered the front-runner among candidates vying to succeed Pataki as governor, signaled his support on Sunday for the latest development.
"I am pleased that Governor Pataki has secured the 1 million square feet of government tenancy, which is a crucial step in ensuring the financial viability of the Freedom Tower," Spitzer said.  The Freedom Tower's supporters point out the World Trade Center was also a creation of government ambition, not market forces. It did not fill up immediately, and yet it ultimately worked.  The trade center also survived the emotional and financial fallout from the 1993 bombing. After reconstruction and improvements, the building was more profitable than ever by 2001.

"There will be, in my judgment, ample tenants for the floors at the Freedom Tower, certainly the upper floors as well," said Larry A. Silverstein, who is developing the tower for the Port Authority. "The views are spectacular."
The responsibility to build the Freedom Tower fell to the Port Authority in the spring, although the agency did not conceive it. The idea for it came from a complicated master plan and political process steered by Pataki.  But negotiations to build and pay for it have proven difficult, even as the parties moved forward with three other prodigious buildings -- Towers 2, 3, and 4 -- near the Freedom Tower. The Port Authority is still unlikely to give final approval to the Freedom Tower at its Thursday meeting, Coscia said.

Despite his opposition to moving Port Authority employees into the tower, Coscia said the agency believes in the project. But without signed leases -- or at least a clearer idea of how much cash they would produce -- the agency is not ready to approve the building's financial plan.  "Regardless of how important the project is, it's extremely important for an agency with so many different responsibilities to be responsible with a project that has financial obligations over many years," he said Sunday.

In an interview last week, Governor Corzine acknowledged the Freedom Tower "might not be the optimal business decision," but said it was important to complete it. "It might not be my first choice, but it's time to move on," he said. "There is enough conviction that we can get public employees into the building to make it a viable economic structure."  The second-largest public employees' union in New York State is polling members about returning to the site, said Darcy Wells, a spokeswoman for the Public Employees Federation. The union will announce the results in the December edition of its magazine.  "Are they going to look at it as they feel proud [to go back]?" she said. "Or are they going to want nothing to do with that location?"  Silverstein said people would eventually flock to the Freedom Tower, partly because "the building is designed like no other building has ever been built." The tower's core, housing the stairs, sprinklers and communications systems, is a redoubt of concrete and steel-reinforcement bars, Silverstein said.

The Port Authority and the city of New York are scheduled to occupy 600,000 square feet each of Silverstein's Tower 4. Those leases are needed to finance skyscrapers that, like the Freedom Tower, are being built without corporate tenants in place, Silverstein officials and Port Authority officials said.  The two sides are negotiating how much the Port Authority and city should pay for space in Tower 4, with Silverstein asking for $78 a square foot last week and the Port Authority offering $59. The two sides will likely resolve their differences in time to approve the agreement at the Thursday meeting, Coscia said.  But even working near the original site may prove difficult for some.

Ken Philmus, a Port Authority executive who retired last year, said some of his former employees could not work in lower Manhattan after the attacks, and went instead to offices in New Jersey or other New York City boroughs.  "This was after much psychological help, and these were good people, talented people," he said. "My own personal feeling is I really hope they find another way other than bringing the Port Authority staff down there."

E-mail: michaels@northjersey.com

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