The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has ended its negotiations with the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church over a plan to rebuild its church destroyed in the terrorist attacks at Ground Zero September 11, 2001.

The authority had planned to swap the church's land and give the church a $20 million subsidy for a new building that would be erected beneath a cantilevered section of a new office tower planned by J. P Morgan Chase at the south end of Ground Zero.

The glass-clad tower was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox and was widely derided for its "potbelly" that contained trading floors and gave the tower a very ungainly form.

According to an article by Charles V. Bagli in today's edition of The New York Times "the authority now says that St. Nicholas is free to rebuild the church on its own parcel at 155 Church Street, just east of West Street" and that "the authority will, in turn, use eminent domain to get control of the land beneath that parcel so it can move ahead with building foundation walls and a bomb-screening center for trucks, buses and cars entering the area."

The article quoted a spokesman for the authority as stating that "the church wanted even more" and "have now given us no choice but to move on to ensure the site is not delayed.

In recent negotiations, the authority told the church that its dome could not rise higher than the trade center memorial and the church, the article continued, "wanted the right to review plans for both the garage with the bomb-screening center and the park" and the church also wanted the $20 million "up front."

The church is a parish of about 70 families and is about 90 years old.