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The Port Authority presented an update on WTC Rebuilding to CB1
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Progress is being made at all corners of the World Trade Center (WTC) site and beyond, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Speaking to Community Board 1 on Monday, January 8th, representatives explained that each Port Authority project is on schedule to meet the rebuilding timeline set forth by the city, state, and leaseholder Silverstein Properties last fall.
Quentin Brathwaite, the Port Authority's assistant director of priority capital programs, began by updating the board on Vehicular Security Center (VSC) progress. The VSC will be the security checkpoint for all delivery, service, and other vehicles entering the WTC, as well as the tour-bus parking area. Its entrance is planned for the south side of the site, on Liberty Street between West and Greenwich Streets.
Designers are now in stage two of VSC planning and are determining details about exterior landscaping, interior vehicle queuing, and access from West Street to minimize traffic congestion. Official designs for the Vehicular Security Center are expected in fall 2007.
Meanwhile, infrastructure and foundation work are underway for the $2.2 billion WTC Transportation Hub, designed by architect Santiago Calatrava. Next month, Port Authority crews will begin building a temporary PATH station entrance just south of its current location and dismantling its current entrance. The new temporary entrance will open this spring, and in fall 2007, a second temporary "north" entrance will open on Vesey at Greenwich Street while the permanent station is built.
Another major element of the transportation hub's construction is the "east-west connector," the pedestrian concourse that will eventually link the WTC to the Winter Garden below West Street. Test pits were dug in summer 2006, and construction will kick off this month on the west side of West Street outside Two World Financial Center. Crews will begin by raising the grade outside the Winter Garden, relocating utilities, and excavating across West Street for secant wall installation.
Construction of the east bathtub is continuing along Liberty Street near Church Street. Crews are now excavating and relocating utilities, making way for slurry wall construction that is necessary for World Trade Center Towers Two, Three, and Four and the transportation hub to be built.
Braithwaite noted that Silverstein Properties is gaining momentum on Freedom Tower construction, with steel columns being installed and concrete soon to be poured at its base.
He also explained that construction of a WTC Performing Arts Center at the north side of the site (between the Freedom Tower and Tower Two) is still part of the rebuilding program. However, its construction will begin after the temporary north entrance to the PATH station is removed. Designs for the Performing Arts Center have yet to be announced.
For more information about Port Authority WTC progress, visit www.pathrestoration.com.
Related links
Freedom Tower Steel on the Rise
Looking Ahead: World Trade Center Transportation Hub
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