The dispute between the Port Authority and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese over rebuilding St. Nicholas' Church, destroyed on 9/11, threatens to throw progress at the entire World Trade Center site into chaos, according to an article by Steve Cuozzo in today's edition of The New York Post.
The archdiocese wants a new church at 130 Liberty St., where the old Deutsche Bank building is being demolished and the PA wants it at the original church site at 155 Cedar St., 100 yards to the southwest.
According to the article, "the church now plans a suit to force the PA to build at 130 Liberty and accuses the PA of 'fraud' in breaking a 'binding' agreement for the location."
In fact, the article continued, "no signed agreement was ever reached - mainly because of the archdiocese's ever-escalating demands. But a court ruling against the PA could force it to redesign an underground Vehicle Screening Center planned beneath 130 Liberty St. That's because steel the PA has ordered for the VSC couldn't support the church above it - a structure three times larger than the original. Re-tooling the VSC would push back by at least another year the already delayed openings of the first two office towers (now set for 2013) and possibly of the Memorial Museum (2011). Why? The VSC will be the security checkpoint for vehicles making deliveries to anywhere on the WTC site. Trucks - and possibly cars and buses - couldn't enter without it. Moreover, the VSC will link to all of the site's notoriously interlocked infrastructure elements. Altering the current design of the steel "cage" would calamitously impact underground work now in progress by the PA and developer Larry Silverstein."
"The grandiose church planned at 130 Liberty St. was described by The New York Times in July 2008 as a 'domed marble complex' six times larger than the original....For all its infamously sluggish bureaucracy, the PA bent over backward to satisfy the archdiocese. So did JP Morgan Chase, which in 2007 wanted to build an office tower on Liberty Street. To accommodate the church, it devised a 'beer-belly' tower, with trading floors cantilevered over the 130 Liberty site. The archdiocese didn't complain about that plan," the article said, "which was later dropped. But it did object to any future cantilever in March 2009, when it also upped the ante on other issues that the PA thought had been resolved."
Among them, the article continued, it wanted "the church to stand 20 feet taller than the Memorial Museum Pavilion - a request the PA had previously rejected" and "unconditional, all-at-once access to $20 million the PA had pledged for construction, rather than on a staged basis subject to completing the land-swap and awarding of job contracts" and "the right to review the VSC plans and to have 'approval' over any future changes to the facility" and "rights to use the surrounding park for its own events and a say in how the park might be otherwise used."
"Sources not affiliated with the PA said that once the sides began trying to draw up an actual contract in 2008, the archdiocese was 'incredibly aggressive,' the article said, "and repeatedly added new conditions. That left PA executive director Christopher Ward, who had to sort out loose ends left by his predecessors, in a pickle. By 2009, he had to order steel for the VSC to break the rebuilding paralysis, as well as to protect the PA from further liability for not finishing the infrastructure. (It's had to pay Silverstein huge sums for missing deadlines.) But no final agreement was in sight. Enough steel to support the church if a deal was ever struck would have cost the PA $20 million on top of the $20 million it had already committed....So Ward decided he had no choice but to get the ball rolling on the VSC immediately. Now, the church....has flashed the lawsuit threat as its supposed trump card. It's probably out of luck getting 130 Liberty St. back - but no court outcome is certain."
The archdiocese wants a new church at 130 Liberty St., where the old Deutsche Bank building is being demolished and the PA wants it at the original church site at 155 Cedar St., 100 yards to the southwest.
According to the article, "the church now plans a suit to force the PA to build at 130 Liberty and accuses the PA of 'fraud' in breaking a 'binding' agreement for the location."
In fact, the article continued, "no signed agreement was ever reached - mainly because of the archdiocese's ever-escalating demands. But a court ruling against the PA could force it to redesign an underground Vehicle Screening Center planned beneath 130 Liberty St. That's because steel the PA has ordered for the VSC couldn't support the church above it - a structure three times larger than the original. Re-tooling the VSC would push back by at least another year the already delayed openings of the first two office towers (now set for 2013) and possibly of the Memorial Museum (2011). Why? The VSC will be the security checkpoint for vehicles making deliveries to anywhere on the WTC site. Trucks - and possibly cars and buses - couldn't enter without it. Moreover, the VSC will link to all of the site's notoriously interlocked infrastructure elements. Altering the current design of the steel "cage" would calamitously impact underground work now in progress by the PA and developer Larry Silverstein."
"The grandiose church planned at 130 Liberty St. was described by The New York Times in July 2008 as a 'domed marble complex' six times larger than the original....For all its infamously sluggish bureaucracy, the PA bent over backward to satisfy the archdiocese. So did JP Morgan Chase, which in 2007 wanted to build an office tower on Liberty Street. To accommodate the church, it devised a 'beer-belly' tower, with trading floors cantilevered over the 130 Liberty site. The archdiocese didn't complain about that plan," the article said, "which was later dropped. But it did object to any future cantilever in March 2009, when it also upped the ante on other issues that the PA thought had been resolved."
Among them, the article continued, it wanted "the church to stand 20 feet taller than the Memorial Museum Pavilion - a request the PA had previously rejected" and "unconditional, all-at-once access to $20 million the PA had pledged for construction, rather than on a staged basis subject to completing the land-swap and awarding of job contracts" and "the right to review the VSC plans and to have 'approval' over any future changes to the facility" and "rights to use the surrounding park for its own events and a say in how the park might be otherwise used."
"Sources not affiliated with the PA said that once the sides began trying to draw up an actual contract in 2008, the archdiocese was 'incredibly aggressive,' the article said, "and repeatedly added new conditions. That left PA executive director Christopher Ward, who had to sort out loose ends left by his predecessors, in a pickle. By 2009, he had to order steel for the VSC to break the rebuilding paralysis, as well as to protect the PA from further liability for not finishing the infrastructure. (It's had to pay Silverstein huge sums for missing deadlines.) But no final agreement was in sight. Enough steel to support the church if a deal was ever struck would have cost the PA $20 million on top of the $20 million it had already committed....So Ward decided he had no choice but to get the ball rolling on the VSC immediately. Now, the church....has flashed the lawsuit threat as its supposed trump card. It's probably out of luck getting 130 Liberty St. back - but no court outcome is certain."
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
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