Larry Silverstein told a RealShare New York conference this week that everytime there's been a gubernatorial change in New York and New Jersey "there's a change of agenda" at Ground Zero that that "wreaks havoc with everything you're trying to accomplish if you're trying to hold a specific timeframe."

Mr. Silverstein and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are in arbitration over their financial relationship at Ground Zero and while Mr. Silverstein told the conference that therefore he could not say much about it, he noted, according to an article in this week's edition of Downtown Express by Julie Shapiro that the "unfortunate thing" is that "the people who built the Trade Center - the last major high-rise project they were involved with - are long since gone. And the people who are there today don't have the experience, don't have the ability, don't have the comprehension of what it takes, the need for timely decisions."

Mr. Silverstein initially said he committed to staying at Ground Zero for 10 years to rebuild it, but the article said "now an optimistic estimate looks more like 17 years," adding that Mr. Silverstein said his attitude was "you've gotta stay there....I want very much to be around to see it accomplished."

Mr. Silverstein told the meeting he anticipates the arbitration will be finished by the end of the year and it said that "a source familiar with Silverstein's position said a few months ago that the developer would ask the arbiters to award him at least $2.75 billion as compensation for Port delays and for all of the rent and insurance he has paid to the authority."

The article said that if the arbitration panel finds in his favor and forces the authority "to give him the resources he needs to build the towers," "the entire site with all three...office towers would be complete by 2016." The authority has said that it wants Mr. Silverstein to not built two of the towers until the office market improves and objecting to financing them because it might "compromise the Port"s ability to complete public infrastructure projects elsewhere," a position that it did not embellish.

According to the article, Mr. Silverstein told the meeting that his 80-story mixed-use project just to the west of the Woolworth Building is still alive. Construction stopped this summer because he could not get financing to continued but the article said he told the meeting "we're going to have to be patient."

Downtown Express also carried an article by Julie Menin, the chair of Community Board 1, that lamented "the lack of progress on the Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center," noting that "the cultural component of the W.T.C. site has been significantly downsized."

"The Drawing Center, the Freedom Museum and the Signature Theater were all once included in plans for the site," she continued, "but have since been eliminated. The Frank Gehry-designed PAC, as the principal and now only remaining cultural facility planned for the W.T.C. site, remains a key element of the master plan and its realization is absolutely essential to the revitalization of Lower Manhattan."

"It is imperative," she argued, "that the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, City of New York, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and all other public and private agencies involved in the reconstruction of the W.T.C. site respect the very strong desire of the community to see the promised PAC built as it was intended in a timely manner. One need only look at the ways in which significant cultural components have helped to revitalize other cities to see its importance as the only community enhancement planned for the W.T.C. site."