Ground Zero reports says rebuilding is 'massively' behind schedule

The rebuilding of the World Trade Centre site is over-budget and years behind schedule -including the September 11 memorial that was once expected to open on the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

A report from Christopher Ward, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, raises more than a dozen problems which are slowing rebuilding and raising costs.

“The schedule and cost estimates for the rebuilding effort that have been communicated to the public are not realistic,” he told Governor David Paterson.

He said a committee of developers and agencies would set new “clear and achievable” timelines by September. He said plans to build five office towers, a US$2bn (€1.26bn) transit hub, a September 11 memorial and a performing arts centre would be completed, although “the question is when and for how much.”

But Mr Paterson said that the Port Authority “will come back and alert us if they feel that perhaps the project is planned beyond our ability to perform,” and Mayor Michael Bloomberg suggested that Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava’s design for the transit hub was too expensive to be built.

“Whether we can afford the Calatrava design, which was spectacular, I don’t know,” the mayor said. “That’s the last piece and the most problematic because there is no money for it.”

Ward said that the September 11 museum also would not open on the 10th anniversary of the 2001 attacks. Other projects on the site were scheduled to open by 2013, although the performing arts centre never had a construction plan.

The report ordered by Mr Paterson – the third governor to push for speedy development of a 16-acre site where a temporary train station is the only completed project in seven years – suggested that the earliest estimates just after the attacks for rebuilding ground zero were not truthful.

Mr Ward called the estimates, most issued during Governor George Pataki’s administration, “emotional dates,” and Mr Paterson promised that in the future, “we will tell the truth every step of the way” about the project.

Mr Pataki once predicted that steel for the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower, the tallest skyscraper planned for the site, would be up by 2006. Steel has just risen above street level for the tower, last estimated to open in 2013.