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Few things are as embarrassing for an architect than having a building you’ve designed spring a leak. Unfortunately for Santiago Calatrava, that is exactly what's happened at the World Trade Center Oculus, a $3.9 billion transit hub built to memorialize the September 11th terrorist... View full entry
“These are expensive projects. There’s no question. But if we are to reap the benefits of mass transit, we have to provide mass transit that is attractive to individual travelers and their families,” said Rick Cotton, the executive director at the Port Authority, without explaining the rise in cost. “Experience shows that rail mass transit is the most attractive alternative, and we’re committed to provided that.” — AM New York
While the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey works to implement an $8 billion overhaul of LaGuardia Airport, costs for a planned AirTrain link connecting the airport to regional mass transit continue to grow. According to AM New York, when first proposed in 2014, the two-mile... View full entry
The Port Authority and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation recently arrived at a deal to develop 5 World Trade Center, the last WTC site. Today, Governor Cuomo released a Request for Proposals, which allows for either commercial or mixed-use proposals for a 900-foot-tall building. Any proposals putting forth a residential component must include “onsite affordable units that comply with New York City’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program,” according to a press release. — 6sqft
Two state agencies that had been embroiled in a yearslong impasse over how to develop the last site at the World Trade Center appear to have resolved their differences and are planning to bring the parcel to market.
The Port Authority and the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. have reached a deal to release a request for proposals in the coming months for 5 World Trade Center
— Crain's New York
Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) head Holly Leicht explained in a meeting that "after quite a lengthy period of time of negotiation, we executed a memorandum of understanding with the Port, the LMDC and the city to move forward on an RFP for Site 5, which will be our last major site... View full entry
The skylight that crowns the spiky, $3.9 billion World Trade Center Oculus has sprung a leak.
A rubber seal that runs along the spine of the retractable skyline is believed to have ripped during its opening and closing on the 2018 anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, The Wall Street Journal reports.
— Curbed NY
"Some $30,000 by The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was spent this winter to repair the tear using black strips of Flex Tape, but the skylight at the massive transportation hub and shopping mall leaked again on May 5," Curbed summarizes the WSJ's account. The Santiago... View full entry
After 9/11, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development gave $3 billion in grants to the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. to redevelop lower Manhattan. A portion of what remains is the $100 million that was to go towards the Performing Arts Center, but those involved in the project worry that disputes between LMDC and the Port Authority, who controls the land on which the Center will be built, are giving the impression that the work to revitalize the area is complete. — 6sqft
After nearly 13 years of delays, the Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center (PACWTC) is facing yet another setback due to unresolved issues between the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the Port Authority, which could ultimately cost the $243 million project, more than $... View full entry
On Tuesday, an agreement was reached between West Side elected officials and the Port Authority that said the agency would expand the planning process for a new $10 billion bus terminal with more local input. And just today they’ve revealed the five proposals that were submitted to a design competition to replace the currently loathed site. — 6sqft
Big-name firms Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, Arcadis, AECOM, Perkins Eastman, and Archilier Architecture Consortium provided proposal, a number of which take on swooping forms and boast green roofs. View full entry
When Condé Nast moved its 3,400 employees moved into One World Trade Center, Port Authority hoped it would attract more tenants. Now two years later, the tower is still one third empty. In fact, it only brought in $13 million in revenue last year– a mere 0.35 percent return on its investment. Now the cash-strapped Port Authority has made plans to sell One World Trade Center for as much as $5 billion, making it the highest price ever paid for an office building in the country. — 6sqft.com
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey...has been so chastened by the cost overruns and construction delays that it declined to hold even a modest ribbon-cutting. When a bureaucracy turns down a major opportunity to pat itself on the back, you know things have turned sour. Turned acid, really.
Still, everyone seems to agree that the main hall, which stretches beneath a glass and white-steel roof and which Calatrava calls the Oculus, is beautiful. But I didn't find it beautiful...
— the Los Angeles Times
"...at least not in the way that Calatrava's finest work, fluid and precise, often is. I found it structurally overwrought and emotionally underwhelming, straining for higher meaning, eager to wring some last drops of mournful power from a site that is already crammed with official, semi-official... View full entry
Graduate students from the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture’s Graduate Design and Build Studio program will officially begin work for the Port Authority of Houston Wednesday.
The project aims to build an open shade structure for a security checkpoint where officers would check I.D.s. under the protection of a canopy.
— The Daily Cougar
Is working for the Port Authority as a grad student like interning for the government, especially when "The $75,000 [grad-student designed] project is more cost effective than the previous designs that would’ve cost between $200,000 to $400,000"?Related:• The school of helpful knocks: the... View full entry
Sure, the news was all but confirmed, but today the Port Authority made it official: The transit org announced that the World Trade Center Transportation Hub—anchored by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava's Oculus—will officially open in "the first week of March," per a press release. [...]
What that actually means for commuters: There will finally be a link between the World Trade Center PATH station and 11 NYC subway lines, along with the East River ferries.
— ny.curbed.com
Read the Port Authority's announcement in full here.The WTC Transportation Hub previously in the Archinect news:Leaking water delays opening of World Trade Center Transit Hub's luxury shopping mallMassive 'spine' skylight in Calatrava's WTC Oculus nears completionNYMag talks to Santiago Calatrava... View full entry
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey approved subsidies to help expedite the construction of lower Manhattan’s 2 World Trade Center [...].
Developer Silverstein Properties Inc., which leases the sites for 2 World Trade Center and two other towers from the Port Authority, would receive a rent break that amounts to $9 million over the life of the lease [...].
The agency had previously maintained that 2 World Trade would be built entirely without public assistance.
— bloomberg.com
Previously in the Archinect news:Bjarke Ingels and the challenges of designing Two World Trade Center2 World Trade Center Could Be the Most Expensive Office Tower in the WorldPort Authority reveals plan to sell World Trade Center site View full entry
'We are transforming LaGuardia into a globally-renowned, 21st century airport that is worthy of the city and state of New York. It’s the perfect metaphor for what we can achieve with the ambition and optimism and energy that made this the Empire State in the first place, and I want to thank our many partners for joining us to build the airport that New York deserves.' — Gov. Cuomo — governor.ny.gov
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo alongside Vice President Joe Biden officially unveiled the proposed design for the new LaGuardia Airport earlier this week. The $4 billion revamp will transform the airport into a single, structurally unified main terminal, including expanded transportation access... View full entry
Govs. Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie have turned to a familiar idea in their pledge to reform the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey: selling its real estate.
A report released over the weekend highlights a plan to sell off many of the agency’s sprawling property holdings, by far the most notable of which is the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan.
That concept has long been pushed within the agency, and it has been implemented gradually over the past decade and a half.
— wsj.com
At $3.74 billion, plus another $200 million in contingencies, the “Transportation Hub” at the World Trade Center—not even the busiest station in the Financial District—will be far and away the most expensive train station built in modern history.
The Hub, as it’s known in Port Authority speak, will be the crowning artistic statement of the World Trade Center complex, perhaps the last grand gesture at a site that was supposed to be full of them.
— observer.com
