Board of Agency Overseeing World Trade Center Buildout Wants Answers on Stalled Residential Tower
The March 19 meeting of the board of directors of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) featured a tense exchange about plans for Five World Trade Center, the vacant lot that occupies the three-quarter-acre square block bounded by Greenwich, Albany, and Washington Streets, and the St. Nicholas National Shrine. In February 2021, LMDC and the Port Authority committed to building a 900-foot tower at the last remaining development site within the World Trade Center, which was slated to contain 1,200 apartments, one quarter of them set aside as affordable units. (This affordability quota was later boosted to one-third of the units.) The original timeline for the project called for construction to begin in January 2022 and end by June 30 of this year. Ground was never broken.
At the conclusion of the March LMDC meeting (the first since April 2025), board chair Holly Leicht prepared to adjourn the session by asking, “is there any further business for today?”
Board member Alicia Glen replied, “there is some business that I would like to discuss, but I don’t know whether it’s appropriate for the official public session or whether we should go into executive session.”
At that point, Arden Sokolow (the executive vice president of the Empire State Development Corporation, or ESDC, a government agency of which LMDC is a subsidiary) said, “I think we didn’t notice”—meaning that the legally required official notification of intent to conduct an executive session (one from which the public is excluded) had not been provided, meaning that such a meeting could not take place.
Ms. Glen continued, “obviously, we’re now within the six-month window of the 25th anniversary,” of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. “We would like to get an update as to what is going on with Site Five.” She pointed to extensive news coverage of the February announcement of a deal under which Larry Silverstein will develop Two World Center as the new headquarters for American Express. “That’s very exciting news, but those of us who have been involved in this for 20 years or so are being asked, and we have an obligation to know, what is going on with Site Five.”
Stephen Konopko, ESDC’s vice president for internal audit said, “we didn’t notice it to the public, so I don’t think entering the executive session at this time would be appropriate.”
Ms. Glen pressed, “it has been quite a while since we last amended the designation and the lease” for Five World Trade Center. This was a reference to the original agreement under which LMDC and the Port Authority awarded the right to develop Five World Trade Center to a partnership led by Mr. Silverstein and Brookfield Properties. This deal called for total payments of $300 million by the developers over the course of four years, including $74 million at the start of building, another $74 million 24 months into construction, and $148 million when the project was completed. But the economic slowdown associated with the Covid pandemic caused the developers to ask LMDC and the Port Authority to modify this agreement. These discussions led to new, much easier terms for the development team, calling for payments of $12 million per year, spread out over several decades. But neither of these sets of terms were memorialized in a signed contract, and none of these payments were ever made.
“And so the city’s representatives have been asked for a briefing, or at least I have been asked what is going on,” Ms. Glen said.
Ms. Sokolow said, “what we’ll do is discuss as much as we can in the public forum, because we didn’t notice executive session. The project is not progressing at this time. They are revisiting financing structures and thinking about ways to progress. We are thinking about what our options are for the site. We are in the midst of that process, both them and our side, thinking through how to move to the next step.” This raises the possibility that LMDC and the Port Authority may be considering revising their agreement with the developers again.
Ms. Glen said, “I want to remind this group that we were asked to revisit the terms of the original deal because of all of the challenges in the economy and Covid. We already did that.” She then asked, “what was the hurdle? Can you remind us, because the goal, obviously in light of what we’re all here doing, is related to the 25th anniversary.”
Ms. Sokolow explained, “after the project went through all the public approvals, there was supposed to be a next step taken, to execute the legal documents. Given their rethinking about the project, they did not move on to that next step. So we and they are evaluating options for moving forward.”
Ms. Glen pressed, “how long is the designation good for?
“I don’t think it has an expiration,” Ms. Sokolow answered.
“So, it’s within our discretion?” Ms. Glen asked, raising the possibility that LMDC and the Port Authority might revoke the award of development rights to the partnership led by Mr. Silverstein and Brookfield.
LMDC board member Carl Rodrigues picked up this thread, asking, “Is it binding on either party?”
ESDC senior counsel Matthew Acocella said, “no”—a response echoed by Ms. Sokolow.
Ms. Leicht observed, “For years, there was recognition after Covid that it wasn’t going to move immediately. Now particularly with [the American Express tower at Site Two] moving, it’s a moment to revisit whether the market has sufficiently recovered.”
Ms. Glen said, “it certainly raises the question as to the approvals that were granted. And the energy that was put into Site Two, in light of the failure to move forward on Site Five, does raise some questions. For us not to spend some time deciding what to do, especially when the person we designated [Mr. Silverstein] has just entered into a very lucrative deal with another major corporation [American Express], is I think of some concern to the City of New York. So I wouldn’t want this to become an issue. We need to get out in front of it and we need to also decide what is the right thing to do. So I would appreciate a briefing on that. Quickly.”
Ms. Sokolow said, “these are all fair questions and we are in the midst of regrouping on next steps.”
Ms. Glen said, “I will also express my displeasure. We are still responsible for making sure that LMDC’s purpose is fulfilled. And I think in light of the impending anniversary and much of the to-do that will go along with that, including the [semiquincentennial, or 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence], we would be put in a very awkward position if this body does not have some story about whether or not it is appropriate to revisit” the terms of the deal with the development team.
“Okay,” Ms. Sokolow said. “We will figure out the forum and then we will do that.”
“We are at six months and counting down,” Ms Glen said. “Hard to believe, but true.”
Later, Lower Manhattan resident Todd Fine provided insight into the discussion at the LMDC board meeting (a recording of which can be seen here). He is the president of the Washington Street Advocacy Group, and has for years pushed for both greater affordability at Five World Trade Center, and greater transparency in formulating plans for the site. He noted, “the original request for proposals went out in 2019, and part of why Silverstein and Brookfield won the designation is that they claimed to have access to all the financing they needed. Almost a decade later, it’s reasonable to ask at what point do you give up and issue a new request for proposals. The idea that the Port Authority and LMDC should wait an unknown number of additional years until Silverstein and Brookfield think they can maximize profit is absurd.”
“This is an opportunity for Mayor Mamdani to do things differently,” Mr. Fine said. “The Mayor gets to appoint three of the seven LMDC board members. So he could insist on dumping a plan that dates from the Cuomo administration, and push for new proposals to maximize affordability and other public benefits. A smaller, more modest building could still have more affordable apartments than this proposal calls for, and would cost so much less that it could have been finished already.”
“That would be a beautiful ending to narrative arc of September 11,” he said, “in which community priorities have been ignored for a quarter of a century. Mayor Mamdani could be the first to insist that public land be used for affordable housing. This could redeem the whole process.”