For all concerned, please keep the topic on the construction of the Freedom Tower, and not a pissing contest to see who "deserves" the world's tallest.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/nyregion/04wtc.html?ref=nyregion
Authority Seeks Bids for Partner on Tower
By CHARLES V. BAGLI
January 3, 2010
The central tower at ground zero, designed to rise to 105 stories, has been characterized by some as a symbol of New York’s resilience, and reviled by others as a white elephant. Now it will pick up a new label: for sale.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey wants to sell the skyscraper, the former Freedom Tower, known now by its original name, 1 World Trade Center.
In recent days, the Port Authority has asked a select group of commercial real estate developers and owners to bid for a partnership interest in the $3.2 billion tower, according to a developer who was contacted by the authority.
The offering would allow the authority to raise what it hopes would be at least $100 million for the project. But the authority wants its new partner to take on the difficult task of marketing the skyscraper’s space and negotiating leases with corporate tenants.
Stephen Sigmund, a spokesman for the authority, acknowledged that a potential sale was in the offing.
“As 1 World Trade Center continues to rise into the city skyline,” he said Thursday, “the timing is right to determine whether there is a strategic partnership that can add long-term success to the building.”
Although the steel latticework is only about five floors above street level today, the skyscraper has been laden with enormous symbolic weight since its inception. It will stand 1,776 feet tall, in a nod to the country’s founding. The tower, with 2.6 million square feet, will also be among the most expensive office buildings in North America when it is completed in 2013.
The sales effort is likewise just getting off the ground. According to executives briefed on the Port Authority’s strategy, it has hired two real estate advisers, Cushman & Wakefield and Jones Lang LaSalle, to handle the negotiations with the prospective partners.
The authority has identified a half-dozen companies with the financial wherewithal and the commercial expertise for the job, including Boston Properties, the Related Companies, the Durst real estate family, Hines, Vornado Realty Trust and Brookfield Properties, which owns the adjacent World Financial Center.
The bidders are being asked to sign a confidentiality agreement and are being given access to a restricted Web site with detailed information about the skyscraper.
It is not an especially auspicious time to be selling real estate. Values have plunged since the market peaked in 2007. Rents are down by as much as 45 percent, according to real estate brokers. And the office vacancy rate downtown is expected to climb above 10 percent as A.I.G., the insurance giant, reduces its presence and Goldman Sachs moves this year to its new heavily subsidized headquarters near ground zero.
The Port Authority is also at loggerheads with the developer Larry A. Silverstein, who leased the World Trade Center only weeks before it was destroyed in 2001. Mr. Silverstein wants to build three office towers at ground zero with Port Authority financing, but given the lack of demand, the authority favors a slow, phased approach to construction. The two sides are in the last stage of arbitration.
Still, a number of real estate investors have recently created funds to buy real estate, at the right price. The publicly traded real estate investment trusts, like Vornado and Boston Properties, raised tens of billions of dollars this year, in part to take advantage of falling prices.
The Port Authority, executives say, believes it has a saleable asset.
“There’s a substantial amount of real estate equity capital looking for the right investment,” said Michael Rotchford, the executive vice president at Cushman who is handling the partnership sale for the authority. “We think this is potentially one of the best real estate investments available in New York.”
In March, the Beijing Vantone Industrial Company, a Chinese real estate firm, signed a 23-year lease for the 64th through 69th floors at 1 World Trade Center. The authority has also signed preliminary agreements with the state and federal governments for an additional one million square feet.
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