Developers: • Port Authority of New York & New Jersey • The Durst Organization
Owner: Port Authority of New York & New Jersey
Construction Manager: Tishman Construction Corporation
Structural Engineer: Cantor Seinuk Group
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Facts & Description:
• The building will be the tallest in New York City and the country upon completion, and one of the tallest in world.
• The building has been renamed by the Port Authority (owner) in spring 2009 from Freedom Tower to One World Trade Center.
• This is the buildings second official design. The first, designed by David Childs in collaboration with Daniel Libeskind, was disregarded due to concerns raised by the New York Police department that the building would be vulnerable to a car bomb blast. The second design was planed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) and was made public in 2006, shortly before construction started.
• The roof height is the same as original One World Trade Center. The building is topped out by a 124-meter (408-foot) spire. So the tower rises 1,776 feet (541-meter) which marks the year of the American declaration of Indepedence. The spire's tip is considered to architectural top of the building (simiular to other new skyscrapers) because it was designed for this highrise as such and not only as an antenna.
• The building now officialy 105 Floors tall, instead of 82. The base will occupy floors 1 - 19, Floors 20 - 63 will be offices, floor 64 will be a skylobby, floors 65 - 88 will also be offices. Floors 89 - 99 will be Mechanical floors, floors 100 - 102 will be used for Observation and other public uses. Floors 103 - 105 will then be more Mechanical Floors.
• The new design attempts to address the NYPD's concerns with its 186.5-foot-high reinforced concrete blast resistant base, which will contain the Freedom Tower's 80-foot tall lobby and three of its mechanical floors.
• The base of the tower, which was originally to be clad in polished steel and titanium like 7 WTC, will now be covered in vertical bands of glass prisms. The base will have no windows except for several tall narrow ones which will be placed a minimum of 25 feet above the ground.
• The cornerstone of One WTC was laid in July 2004, before the redesign was deemed necessary. The stone was then removed in mid 2006 as foundation work for the tower began. Foundation work is fully completed in 2009 and the towers steel begun to rise towards the sky. Expected topping out is in 2012 and completion is planned in 2013 with a total cost of more than 3 billion US-$.
• After lengthy and combative negotiations that resulted in a reconfigured lease agreement between the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (the owner of the World Trade Center) and Larry Silverstein (the leaseholder of the complex), construction of the Freedom Tower began on April 27, 2006. Not long after the start of construction, a new battle with the insurers of the World Trade Center resulted from the reconfiguration of the lease. The court battle now threatens to delay or end construction.
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