People close to the matter have said that the cost of delivering the building to replace those famously destroyed in terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001, has spiralled to more than $3.8 billion (£2.4 billion).
The Wall Street Journal broke the news that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has had to spend more than initially anticipated to add the new World Trade Centre to the Manhattan skyline. The price tag is now the highest for any office tower ever built.
Political wrangling and construction cost overruns have dogged the new World Trade Center project, but the price now associated with the scheme is nevertheless remarkable: It amounts to more than double the cost of building the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, currently the world’s tallest tower.
The Journal reports that the port authority has borne the bulk of the necessary expenditure and has had to subsidise its initial budget by increasing tolls on bridges around New York in recent years.
However, it is widely understood that the new office tower was always being built primarily as a political and symbolic gesture rather than based on a purely commercial property investment strategy. Major international companies have had plenty of interest in leasing the office space that will eventually be available for rent.
“This is not a project that’s standing on its own – it was never intended to be,” remarked Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, a non-profit group based in New York.
A recent report on office space from the research group Reis Inc. showed that vacancy rates fell on average across America during the fourth quarter of 2011, with new supplies of high-quality offices running notably short in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.