World Trade Center leases booming, famed developer Larry Silverstein says
It has been nearly 18 years since the terrorist attack on September 11, slaughtered thousands of New Yorkers and virtually demolished the area surrounding the Twin Towers. But World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein said the rebuilding of the trade center is almost completed.
“It’s been the biggest challenge of my life and it’s only taken us 18 years to this point,” Silverstein told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney on Monday. “We have another few years to go before we are finished.”
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What’s more, Silverstein said that World Trade Center leasing is booming. It all started with the completion of the new 7 World Trade Center almost 14 years ago when it’s first tenant, Moody’s, signed a lease for 750,000 square feet of space.
“Once we signed the lease with Moody’s it wasn’t difficult to lease the balance of the building,” Silverstein said. “So we leased 1 million 700 thousand square feet pretty rapidly to private enterprise and good quality tenants—first class tenants who believed in what we told them and that is that we are going to rebuild the World Trade Center. It was going to be better and bigger and finer than ever.”
Some of the other tenants include Spotify, Conde Nast, BMI, and GroupM.
In addition Silverstein said that there were no security concerns on the part of Moody’s an others going back into the trade center.
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While most of the complex is completed including its centerpiece, One World Trade Center, which stands 104 stories and 1,776 feet tall, and an official memorial to the victims of the attacks, there are two more buildings to finish.
One is a new performing arts center that was funded by billionaire investor Ronald Perelman and the last office building to go up—2 World Trade Center. According to Silverstein the entire complex should be completed by 2022.
“Downtown is back – almost fully,” he said.
As far as its surrounding neighborhood, commercial neighbors include Revlon, Bank of America, American Express, Goldman Sachs, Citi and Wells Fargo.