New York City officials broke ground on 2 World Trade Center on Thursday, starting work on the final commercial building planned in the World Trade Center complex. The 1,226-foot tower is set to become a new headquarters for American Express and to open in 2031.
Kathryn Garcia of The Port Authority said the rebuilding was meant to honor those lost and look toward the future. She recalled that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the pile at Ground Zero gave off an acrid burning smell that lingered for months in lower Manhattan.
Kathryn Garcia at Ground Zero
Garcia said the effort began in the months after the Twin Towers fell, when officials called for rebuilding. At the groundbreaking ceremony, she said, “Amid the recovery efforts, the Port Authority knew that to honor those we lost, we had to look toward the future and rebuild.”
She added, “But in setting out on that task, there were many critics that said that the World Trade Center campus and the broader lower Manhattan community would simply never come back.” She also said, “We wanted to see the final piece, the capstone, actually get built, to see the future of World Trade Center, and it is our job to take the long view.”
2 World Trade Center plans
The Port Authority announced the start of construction for the 2-million-square-foot tower next to the Oculus shopping center on Greenwich Street. Silverstein Properties will develop the project, and Foster + Partners is the design architect. The building is expected to cost about $4 billion and will sit about 500 feet shorter than One World Trade Center.
American Express has been on Vesey Street since 1986 and will keep its headquarters there until the new tower is finished. The tower will also include about an acre of outdoor green space. Zohran Mamdani said the project will mark a new chapter for New York City while remembering the victims of Sept. 11.
World Trade Center completion
The project carries a stated $6 billion economic impact and is expected to create about 3,200 jobs. Mamdani said American Express will contribute roughly $11.4 billion toward the economy when it moves in, along with nearly $250 million in tax revenue. For workers and tenants around lower Manhattan, the practical result is a completed office tower where the last major gap in the commercial rebuild has stood for years.
The open question now is what caused the long delay before construction on 2 World Trade Center began, even as the site moved from mourning to rebuilding and the final tower finally starts to rise.
