WTC rebuilding progress defended

Officials rebuilding the World Trade Centre site today defended their progress to state politicians who asked why no office towers had risen at ground zero nearly five years after terrorists destroyed the twin towers.

“There is a palpable sense of doubt” about plans to develop the 16-acre site with office buildings and a September 11 memorial, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said at a committee hearing.

Rebuilding leaders said a new agreement reached last month with a private developer and the government agency that owns the site will speed up the timetable and ensure that the site could be fully built in six years. But they acknowledged the agreement is not finalised.

“In fact, this is an agreement to agree,” private developer Larry Silverstein told the Assembly’s Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions of his renegotiated lease at the site.

The new deal, reached last month, divides rebuilding money and the responsibility for building office towers between Silverstein and the site’s owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.