UPDATED, 5:00 p.m., Sept. 2: Silverstein Properties’ 2 World Trade Center office tower will represent the Financial District’s growth into a “new downtown” geared toward creative businesses, according to the head of Silverstein’s World Trade Center Properties division.
“I think it will be the capstone of this transition of downtown from old financial services that kind of roll up the sidewalks at 5 o’clock to the new downtown, which is very much the creative business,” Janno Lieber told the New York Times in an interview this week.
Lieber noted that Bjarke Ingels’ design for the 2.8 million-square-foot skyscraper – which replaced previous plans by British architect Norman Foster — is intended to suit the needs of anchor tenants 21st Century Fox and News Corp.
“The old design didn’t work for Fox,” he told the Times, adding that the project’s redesign came about so that the media company “can have their studios and newsrooms.”
Lieber said 2 World Trade Center is already attracting “significant tenants that are interested because they think the design is supercool.” The building will be “mostly done” in 2019, with Fox slated to move in “halfway through 2020,” he added. [NYT] – Rey Mashayekhi