Developer Told to Build 9/11 Site or Stand Clear

One day after critical talks on the rebuilding effort at ground zero collapsed, the Pataki administration said yesterday that it would not reopen negotiations with the developer Larry A. Silverstein. It challenged him to start building the $2.3 billion Freedom Tower next month or "move out of the way."

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Facing a self-imposed midnight deadline, advisers to Gov. George E. Pataki negotiated for nearly 16 hours Tuesday trying to reach a deal in which Mr. Silverstein, who holds the lease for the site, would surrender control of the Freedom Tower and a second building to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the site's owner. That would have paved the way for an April groundbreaking for the Freedom Tower, the largest and most symbolic of five skyscrapers planned for the site.

The failure of the talks is just the latest problem to arise over plans to rebuild the World Trade Center site, from the fight over the original design to the dispute over a planned cultural center to fund-raising problems for a memorial, as well as continuing doubts of some critics as to whether the Freedom Tower is even a good idea.

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Mr. Silverstein leased the World Trade Center from the Port Authority in July 2001, only weeks before it was destroyed by terrorists. He has long insisted that he has both the will and the means to rebuild the entire $7 billion project, although city, state and Port Authority executives have been skeptical given that there is only $2.9 billion in insurance proceeds available.

Not that I am a fan of Larry Silverstein - he still has some 9/11 questions to answer - but if he is a leaseholder and the authorities are telling him what he can and can not build and trying to bend him to their will, what is it he really gets to decide?

tags: silverstein  nyc  wtc