Yaffi Spodek | 07.09.2010 | The Real Deal
Construction is starting today at World Trade Center Tower 3, one of four planned skyscrapers in a spiral structure to be built by Silverstein Properties at the World Trade Center site, according to Janno Lieber, president of World Trade Center Properties, an affiliate of Silverstein Properties.
"This is an exciting moment in this project," Lieber said Wednesday at a Bisnow-sponsored conference addressing the state of the construction industry. "We now have the entire WTC site under development, with 7.5 million square feet of space from Towers 2, 3 and 4."
First up in what is expected to be a four-year project at Tower 3 is the mobilization stage, a precursor to the excavation period, when the foundation contractor, the Laquila Group, will start drilling through the rock to create the tower's footing, said Dara McQuillan, Silverstein's senior vice president of marketing and communications, in a follow-up interview. Once the excavation is complete, the Laquila Group will be able to start pouring the concrete footing, he said.
It is unclear how long the first phase of construction will last, but the entire Tower 3 project, located at 175 Greenwich Street, is slated for completion in December 2014, McQuillan said. Tower 4, Lieber noted at the conference, is scheduled to open in 2013.
With 54 office floors, Tower 3 includes 2.5 million square feet of office space and five trading floors. The site will have three retail floors from the ground floor to the third floor plus two below grade. The tower, designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, will have a reinforced concrete core and columns with steel girders and beams. Bound by Greenwich Street to the right, Church Street to the east, Dey Street to the north and Cortlandt Street to the south, Tower 3 is at the center of the WTC memorial site development. The complex -- with an estimated price tag of close to $1 billion -- includes four new skyscrapers on Greenwich Street plus a fifth on Liberty Street, a Sept. 11 memorial and museum, a WTC transportation hub, a retail complex and a performing arts center.
The entrance to the three-level public lobby of Tower 3 is on Greenwich Street, with views of the entire WTC memorial project.