Rendering of Tower 3 (Silverstein Properties)
. Because of potential difficulty with finding a tenant for Tower 3 at the redeveloped World Trade Center, developer Larry Silverstein may cut the 80-story skyscraper by 73 stories and transform is into a seven-story structure instead.
According to Crain's, "Developer Larry Silverstein is planning to halt construction by the end of the year on the second of the two towers he is currently building at the World Trade Center site if he can't find a major office tenant, sources close to the company said. Minor modifications have already been made to the ongoing construction of the tower that will allow it to be capped at the seventh floor—73 short of its planned height. Retail tenants would be sought for the seven-story podium." The skyscraper would have had 2.8 million square feet of office space and was expected to be ready in 2015.
Also, Crain's says, "The building's cap can be removed and construction can resume" if Silverstein finds a tenant. For Silverstein to continue on the skyscraper version of WTC 3 and get debt guarantees from the Port Authority, he needs a tenant to commit to 400,000 square feet of office space. And one real estate expert said for a company to outfit 400,000 square feet, it could cost $100 million, and might just be cheaper not to move there, "The willingness of large-scale tenants to commit in this environment is limited because companies don't want to go out and spend a lot of money. It's not the building; it's the market."
The Daily News spoke to people around the WTC site yesterday about not building an 80-story WTC 3. One said, “It needs to be built. Why would he start a project he can’t finish?.. . He needs to pick up the slack and do what he said he was going to do."
