Larry Silverstein wants a bailout for 9/11 Site

Stephen C. Webster
Raw Story

As if there weren’t enough roadblocks to seeing a new structure rise from the site where the World Trade Center towers once stood.

From this morning’s Wall St. Journal …

The rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, already hobbled by years of delays and infighting, is facing fresh problems as private developer Larry Silverstein asks the government for crucial financial assistance, according to people familiar with the matter.

The result would be that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the government entity that owns the site, would take on more of the risk of the project at a time when the agency already faces budget restraints to pursue its core transportation and infrastructure missions.

The Port Authority, eager to prevent the project from stalling, is considering helping to finance at least one of Mr. Silverstein’s planned three office towers, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Silverstein is requesting financing help on at least two of the three towers. The Port Authority would require concessions from Mr. Silverstein, including possibly giving up some of upside profits should the towers succeed in the long term.

This is the same guy who wanted double his insurance policy’s value after the devastating 2001 attacks because each airplane impact, as he said, was actually a separate act of terrorism.

And that’s the Nice on some of the bad press surrounding Silverstein … Most know him best from his eternally curious comment to PBS shortly after the collapse of WTC 7.