Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey failed today in an attempt to sell $300 million in bonds, a large offering that was met with zero bids. The failure seems to speak more to the continued glacial freeze of the credit markets than it does to the economic stability of the Port Authority, as the credit agencies still gave the agency high ratings.

Regardless of the reason, the fact that the authority was unable to sell bonds could mean big trouble down the road if the agency continues to have such problems. The $30 billion capital plan requires that the agency continually sell bonds to finance the construction of its major projects, including the Freedom Tower and other projects at the World Trade Center.

The agency, in a statement, said the bond offering was done in advance of when the money is needed.  read more »

Here's Port Authority executive director Chris Ward in the Wall Street Journal this morning, in a larger story about future construction funds, including for public works, from the Obama administration: "What we've been told is to be ready, it's coming."

The story alluded to possible Obama funding for the ARC rail tunnel under the Hudson River.

From the Holland Tunnel to the Golden Gate Bridge, many a tunnel and bridge were built during times of economic distress, with the federal government throwing taxpayer dollars at public works to stimulate the economy.

So why not add a new $7.6 billion New Jersey Transit tunnel to the list?

That’s what the Port Authority thinks, anyhow, as its chairman Anthony Coscia today called on Congress to include money for the tunnel as part of a stimulus package that is expected to be negotiated in coming weeks. Mr. Coscia's remarks came during a business symposium in Jersey City.  read more »

Apparently there's a more valuable use for real estate in the far West Side than bus parking.

Today at its board meeting, the Port Authority designated a sliver of about 1,200 square feet it owns by the Lincoln Tunnel entrance ramp and West 30th Street as "surplus property," clearing the way to sell it to a hotel developer [PDF here, with the deal on page 6]. The site, used as part of a larger bus parking lot, will be sold for $4,155,120 to Arisa Realty, which owns the parcel directly to the north (on the southeast corner of the entrance ramp street and West 31st Street).  read more »

Missing from today's new World Trade Center timetable was any mention of the schedules for the planned 6.2 million square feet of office space in developer Larry Silverstein's planned three towers at the site.

The response of the mayor and the Port Authority's executive director, Chris Ward: The market will decide that, but the infrastructure will be in place.

"The market will respond as it needs to respond," Mr. Ward said at a press conference with Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson. "We will have available those sites and those foundations to Larry's team to meet the market."

In his long-term lease with the Port Authority, Mr. Silverstein is required to complete his buildings by 2013. Should he not finish any individual building by its required completion date, he would be in default of his lease, and the Port Authority could claim all three buildings.  read more »

Target dates at the World Trade Center have been moved by months and years for the more than $16 billion project, with the target end-date for the Port Authority to finish all of the site's components by the end of 2013, the agency announced today.

Delays have been known publicly for months, and since June the Port Authority, which owns the site, has been working to resolve about 15 outstanding issues in order to set a new public schedule and budget for the project.  read more »

The Port Authority is slated to recommend a closure of the No. 1 train south of Chambers Street for a series of months, likely during the summer, according to multiple people familiar with the agency's plans.

The recommendation is expected to be part of the Port Authority's report on dates and budgets, which will likely announce the rebuilding effort is facing around $1.7 billion in cost overruns.

The closure would not be unprecedented, as the M.T.A. has closed the train for many weekends south of Chambers Street to help construction efforts, running shuttle buses between South Ferry and Chambers. But the length of the closure would be certain to frustrate commuters from Staten Island and could cause complications with the service on the 1/2/3 lines.  read more »

As the Port Authority gears up for its big bare-all report Thursday on World Trade Center dates and costs, the price tag of the site stands to rise significantly.

According to numerous people familiar with discussions, the Port Authority is planning to announce the total amount in overruns is about $1.7 billion for the whole site. The amount presents the public sector with a large gap to fill in a time of strained budgets; however, the dollar figure is not quite as cataclysmic as early reports suggested, which put the gap at as much as $3 billion.

The overruns apply to the public sector portion of the site, which includes the Freedom Tower, the Santiago Calatrava-designed PATH hub, the common infrastructure, the vehicle screening center, the memorial, and the museum (but not the three Larry Silverstein-built towers).  read more »

Here's Mayor Bloomberg on his Friday morning radio show with John Gambling on the World Trade Center and the Port Authority's commitment to open the memorial by Sept. 11, 2011:

We all agree that the critical thing is that we have to have on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 the Memorial built with people being able to get to it--the platform, the water cascading down, the trees, the names. The museum underground can take a little bit longer and it will just because of the complexity of the problem. ... The governor and I have both said to [Port Authority executive director Chris Ward] we want the Port to guarantee any cost overruns over that, because otherwise you don't have any confidence they will, but you have to give them an economic incentive.

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"I don't believe this! Other countries would build somithing like this if they experienced a massive terrorist attack.I think that it is a disgrace that the port authority wants to simplify this hub because it costs too much money.This would truly be a beautiful hub if it was built. How could the Port Authority become so lazy with the WTC site? That site should be the center of America's attention right now!!! First the site was set for completion in 2010, then 2011, then 2012 and now 2013!!! Honestly, we should have had something up by 2003 to 2004,and now they want to simplify this hub because of money? This would truly be a remarkable hub,and I have been saying that since I saw it's design in 2006. I think that New York and America really deserves this. I hope that they don't change it's design." ["Agreement Near on Modestly Simplified Calatrava WTC Hub"]

With a report due in just one week that sets new timetables for the World Trade Center redevelopment, a decision is near on one of the most complex--and controversial--elements at the site, the multibillion dollar PATH hub.

The Santiago Calatrava-designed station has been a massive headache for officials and engineers since at least early 2007, when it became clear that the design was too costly given its $2.1 billion budget and could delay multiple other elements, including the memorial, at the interconnected site given the central placement of the station. In recent months, as the Port Authority has sought to bring in new timetables, a decision on what to do with the PATH station has been at the center of discussion.  read more »

Port Authority officials rushing to create a comprehensive report on the World Trade Center redevelopment by the end of the month are getting a small reprieve. The report, which is expected to have a new timetable for the site's completion and a new (higher) price tag, was once slated for issuance Sept. 29 but is now due to be released Oct. 2.

The reason, according to a Port Authority spokesman: Rosh Hashanah, which runs Sept. 29 - Oct. 1.

Port Authority executive director Chris Ward told the Wall Street Journal that the September 11 memorial and museum will be "available" by the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks in 2011. What does that mean exactly?

"What the public sees most importantly in terms of the plaza, the reflecting pools and the waterfall will be available," Mr. Ward says of the memorial's design, which centers on two voids that mimic the towers' footprints. The museum won't be completed and public access remains in question.

Here's The Observer's profile of Mr. Ward in May.

With The Times giving details today on the changes being considered to the Santiago Calatrava-designed PATH hub, we caught up with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver out at the Democratic National Convention in Denver to get his reaction to the news that the Port Authority may put columns in the signature main hall of the station, which was to be open.

Mr. Silver did not take a firm position either way, but signaled openness to scaling back the aesthetics of the planned iconic station.

"Obviously, the functional purpose of it is still important, and we ought to watch that we get what's going on there as quickly as possible, get it moving," he said.  read more »

"I would say that this has probably been the greatest planning fiasco in the history of the world."

That's Wall Street Journal architecture critic Ada Louis Huxtable's blistering take on the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site, now about to enter its eighth year. No one is spared in the invective.

"When did all of these infighting factions become benign 'stakeholders,' with equal rights, right or wrong? And when did those stakeholders cease to be recognized as special interests, each with its own self-directed agenda?"

If only there'd been better planning instead of so much self-interested grandstanding. If only there'd been an Edward Logue, the planner behind the South Bronx, New Haven and Boston redevelopments of yore.

"The critical factor that did Ground Zero in was the denial of the professional planning role essential to coordinate and execute an effort of this magnitude."

The Paterson administration has replaced Port Authority board commissioner Christy Ferer with Fred Hochberg, a former Clinton administration official at the Small Business Administration and dean of Milano, the New School's center for management and urban policy.

While the Paterson administration generally announces such nominations beforehand, this one went in quietly and stayed that way until it was done, as the state Senate last night voted to confirm Mr. Hochberg for the unpaid position on the agency's board.

Ms. Ferer, whose term expired last year, was appointed to the board by Governor Pataki in 2004. Her husband was  read more »

With at least eight years left before a set of new rail tunnels under the Hudson River are scheduled to be built and functioning, developer Sam Chang has already begun to reap benefits from the project. That's because the voracious builder of cookie-cutter hotels bought a $24 million West Side parking lot last November—a lot that just happened to be the same site the Port Authority needs in order to build the more than $7 billion project, called Access to the Region's Core (ARC).

Since then, the number of developers and landlords buying any city property has fallen off a cliff amid an impossible financing market, and brokers report that the bulk of sales that do happen have noticeably lower prices.  read more »

"$244.5m + $56m = $300.5 million to design a PATH station - are you kidding me? This is just to design the damn thing, let alone build it. Its no wonder the Port Authority is falling all over itself to cover up the fiasco that is the World Trade Center." ["At WTC, Conflict of Interest Concerns"]

Editor's note: The $56 million is included within the $244.5 million figure.

A major engineering firm retained for numerous jobs at the World Trade Center site is in talks to acquire a company run by the Port Authority commissioner most closely involved with the site’s redevelopment.

The commissioner, Anthony Sartor, chairs the Port Authority’s World Trade Center subcommittee and is president of KeySpan Services, which controls Paulus, Sokolowski & Sartor, an engineering firm that is a subsidiary of National Grid. Engineering and architectural giant STV Incorporated, which has contracts with the Port Authority for the Freedom Tower and the multibillion-dollar PATH hub, is exploring a potential acquisition of Mr. Sartor’s company, known as PS&S.  read more »

The governing board of the Port Authority will increase its oversight of World Trade Center development, as board chairman Anthony Coscia is calling for new monthly meetings devoted to monitoring progress at the site.

Based on a memo he sent to the other board members today, the meetings will allow for monthly updates on cost and schedules, drawing a sharp contrast with years past (the first revision of dates and cost since 2006 is slated to be delivered in September).

The new meetings, to be held near the site, "will create an opportunity for the Board to give staff more policy direction regarding the rebuilding effort," Mr.  read more »

As expected, the Port Authority last week approved the land deal with St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church to allow the Port to use the church's Ground Zero land and build a vehicle security center below.

The bi-state agency agreed to give the church $20 million ($10 million is supposed to come from JPMorgan Chase for its planned adjacent building, though we'll see if that tower ever happens), along with up to $40 million for infrastructure. The church will get a significantly larger lot than it had prior to September 11, 2001, at 8,100 square feet.

Release below.  read more »

The NYPD will oversee security at the new World Trade Center, as the city and the Port Authority have reached an agreement on the structure of a security plan at the 16-acre site.

The agreement, announced today, leaves NYPD in charge of security at the vast majority of the site, a role the Port Authority Police Department currently has (the move has angered members of the Port Authority police). The Port Authority would control security at the PATH hub at the site, but the NYPD would have access to that space, according to a memorandum of understanding between the city and the Port Authority made public today.  read more »

The Port Authority at its board meeting this afternoon is taking a look at three possible designs for the planned tower over its bus terminal, with the firms of Richard Rogers, Cesar Pelli and Kohn Pedersen Fox all submitting plans.

Steve Roth's Vornado, in the hunt for an anchor tenant, is the developer for the tower, which would sit across the street from the Renzo Piano-designed New York Times building.

Pelli Clarke Pelli designed the Bloomberg tower on Lexington Avenue for Vornado; Mr. Rogers' firm designed the planned Tower 3 at the World Trade Center; and KPF was signed on for JPMorgan Chase's now-scuttled new investment banking headquarters (with a notable goiter for trading floors) downtown.

Images below.  read more »

Vornado Realty Trust CEO Steve Roth is considering a design by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Richard Rogers for his planned office tower atop the Port Authority Bus terminal, a Port Authority official confirmed.

The design by Mr. Rogers, along with two other designs (New York-based SHoP was said to be working on a design for the tower at one point), is expected to be presented at today's Port Authority board meeting.

Mr. Rogers, whose works include the planned Tower 3 at the World Trade Center and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, recently withdrew from a nearby project: the now scuttled Javits Center expansion.

We'll (hopefully) have more after the meeting at 1:30.

The Port Authority has reached a tentative land deal with St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at ground zero, removing a hurdle to the construction of a vehicle security center in the new World Trade Center, according to a Port Authority official. The deal is expected to come before the agency's board for approval today.

A dispute over the church's land, which sits south of Liberty Street across from ground zero, was highlighted in a Port Authority report last month as one of more than a dozen potential or impending major hurdles at the World Trade Center site.

In the agreement, the Port Authority would pay $20 million to the church, giving it a more than 8,000-square-foot site on which to build.  read more »

To celebrate the 60th birthday of JFK Airport on July 25, the Port Authority will offer travelers free rides on the airport's monorail system, the AirTrain. A one-way ticket's normally $5.

Release below:

 

 

THE PORT AUTHORITY THANKS ITS CUSTOMERS

AS KENNEDY AIRPORT TURNS 60

Travelers Encouraged to Leave Their Cars Home Next Friday

and Take a Free Ride on AirTrain JFK

The Port Authority will provide free AirTrain JFK rides on Friday, July 25, as a thank you to customers who have helped make John F. Kennedy International Airport the country’s premier international gateway, and one of the world’s most venerable aviation facilities.  read more »

The Sun today reported on the high salaries of members of the executive chamber in the Paterson administration, noting that 62 of the 176 staffers in the executive chamber have a salary of at least $100,000.

Well, we have one to add outside the chamber that caught our eye: Drew Warshaw, the 27-year-old new chief of staff to Port Authority executive director Chris Ward, takes in $168,012 annually. The previous Port Authority director, Tony Shorris, didn't have anyone with the title of chief of staff, but his "special executive assistant," Andy Rachlin, took in $99,000 a year.

Mr. Warshaw served as an aide in the Spitzer administration, working with Rich Baum, secretary to the Governor.

With uncertainties abounding since last week’s acknowledgement that the World Trade Center redevelopment is behind schedule and overbudget, much talk at last night’s mega-Lower Manhattan community meeting centered around the site’s 8-acre memorial, referred to repeatedly as “the heart” of the project.

The meeting was designed to give the public a chance to talk with the major stakeholders in the redevelopment; attendees included State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Councilman David Yassky and State Senator Martin Connor. The memorial took center stage.

The memorial and interior museum was once slated for completion in 2009, but now the Port Authority said it will not be finished by the 10th anniversary of the attacks in September 2011.  read more »

Port Authority executive director Chris Ward today presented his candid review of the outstanding challenges at the World Trade Center site, tossing out the existing timetables and listing more than a dozen unresolved issues that could add delays.

Mr. Ward’s announcement, as expected, did not outline any specific dates but rather the new director pledged to come back in September with a revised plan for the site [see a PDF of the report here].

The biggest challenge for the agency is the PATH hub, a project budgeted at $2.5 billion with overruns. The project, which encompasses aspects unrelated to PATH such as retail and costly infrastructure for the broader World Trade Center site, is highly unlikely to fit within that budget.  read more »

The Port Authority is expected to deliver its report about World Trade Center timetables and budgets Monday, and the situation looks so grim that the agency appears as though it will throw out the existing dates without setting a new timetable, at least for now, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

The Port Authority’s initial analysis found that the projects under the agency's control—the PATH hub, the memorial, the Freedom Tower—stand to be delivered years behind schedule and substantially over budget. The agency wants more time to do further analysis, and could set dates at a later time, people briefed on the matter said.  read more »

Governor Paterson today announced an audit of the schedules and budgets at the World Trade Center site, with his new Port Authority director Chris Ward due to report back by the end of June.

The review, announced two hours after the Port Authority acknowledged it is facing a two-month delay on the site for Tower 2, is already underway at the bi-state agency, as the Paterson administration seems eager to shed any blame for the unrealistic timetables set in the Pataki era.

From a letter from Mr. Paterson to Mr. Ward:

The rebuilding of the World Trade Center site must encompass clear and achievable timelines and budget goals that must be met at every step of the way. Furthermore, the stakeholders and the public must be kept up to date on progress in meeting the timetables and budgets as we move forward.

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The Port Authority today acknowledged that it will be late in delivering a key portion of the World Trade Center site to developer Larry Silverstein, owing him millions in penalties.

The bi-state agency said it will take until August to turn over the site for Tower 2, a space being excavated that it is obligated to turn over by July 1. The Port Authority will owe Mr. Silverstein $300,000 a day for each day that the site is late, the same penalty it faced when it missed a Jan. 1 deadline for the site for Towers 3 and 4, eventually owing more than $12 million.

In a statement, the Port Authority noted that the agency will now not be paying an incentive of between $8 million and $14 million that it was prepared to pay its contractors had they finished on time.  read more »

Governor Paterson has nominated a former deputy mayor in the Koch administration, Stanley Grayson, to fill a slot on the Port Authority’s governing board.

Mr. Grayson, a onetime city finance commissioner and current president of M.R. Beal & Company, will take the slot of Bruce Blakeman, a Pataki administration appointee and former Republican candidate for state comptroller, according to a Port Authority spokeswoman.

Given his background—as deputy mayor, Mr. Grayson oversaw economic development and M.R. Beal is an investment firm—Mr. Grayson’s appointment seems a telling sign of the Port Authority’s evolving role as a bi-state agency. While its mission is centered around regional transportation, much of its focus recently has been devoted to economic development such as the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site and perhaps assuming control of the Moynihan Station project.  read more »

In 2000, the Port Authority announced it would build a new, $37.4 million Battery Park ferry terminal to replace the “temporary” one installed in 1989, to transport 12,500 weekday commuters between New York and New Jersey, but September 11 thwarted the plan.

A lot of different Battery Park ferry terminal developments have happened in the past eight years, but the five-slip, upgraded terminal had yet to appear—until this weekend. A trio of tugboats will finally bring a permanent, “state-of-the-art,” terminal from Sunset Park, Brooklyn, to the Battery Park City promenade on Saturday morning where final installation will begin, the Port Authority announced today.  read more »

The Port Authority has reached an agreement with the Chinese real estate firm Vantone to lease space in the Freedom Tower, a deal that, if completed, will mark the first major private sector lease for the tower.

Vantone agreed to take 190,000 square feet for a 22-year lease to make a “China Center,” starting at $80 a square foot.

However, there’s reason to keep the champagne corked for now. Developer Larry Silverstein broke off a lease deal in 7 World Trade Center with Vantone in 2006 when the firm failed to produce a letter of credit in a timely fashion. The firm then backed out of a lease deal at 195 Broadway.  read more »

After well over a year of below-grade work, the Freedom Tower has reached the street level. Those in the Spitzer administration had often pointed to this milestone as a time at which the public would begin to understand that there was active work going on at Ground Zero.

Picture courtesy of the Port Authority; a few weeks ago we got a look at the construction site and shot our own photos.

Mayor Bloomberg pushed back against a pet initiative of Senator Schumer's today, saying the city “would never agree” to the Port Authority taking over the troubled Moynihan Station project.

Since March, Senator Schumer has been an outspoken proponent of moving the project under the purview of the Port Authority, saying the bi-state agency has the experience and the capability to complete the long-stalled project. Governor Paterson has supported the idea and said the move is likely, though some legislators are against it.

This morning Mr. Schumer tried to push the idea further, saying at a Crain’s New York breakfast that the state’s development agency, which currently has authority over the project, “is not capable of being a major development agency here.”

Shortly after, responding to questions from reporters, Mayor Bloomberg said, effectively, thanks but no thanks.  read more »

Should Governor Paterson indeed move the Moynihan Station project under the control of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, as he said he wants to do, at least two members of the State Assembly are poised to resist the action: Richard Gottfried, the district’s representative, and Richard Brodsky, the chairman of the committee that oversees public authorities.

“It’s a New York project; it ought to be run by a New York agency,” Mr. Brodsky said. “As a bi-state authority, they [the Port Authority] have been unresponsive, remote and immune to reform.”

Moving Moynihan from the state-controlled Empire State Development Corporation to the Port Authority would remove the Legislature from any direct control over the project, taking away its ability to pass laws about the plan or have approval power via the Public Authorities Control Board. (The PACB blocked the project from moving forward in a phased plan at the end of the Pataki administration.)  read more »

Governor David Paterson said today that he will likely move Moynihan Station under the purview of the Port Authority, dropping the imbroglio on the plate of soon-to-be-announced executive director Christopher Ward.

From The Observer’s Em Whitney:

David Paterson was on the WFAN "Boomer and Carton" show this morning, expressing frustration over the city’s stalled major development projects.

“What I’m going to do," Paterson told the hosts, "is probably move construction of Moynihan [Station] to the Port Authority, which I think has a better chance of getting it done quickly and I hope that we can start construction quickly enough that we can reverse plans that exist.

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Governor David Paterson is planning to appoint Christopher Ward as executive director of the Port Authority, with an announcement to come as early as this afternoon, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation.

Mr. Ward, the former commissioner of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection and a onetime Port Authority staffer, would take the slot left vacant by Anthony Shorris, who was asked to resign by Mr. Paterson last month to make way for a commissioner of his choosing.  read more »