Port Authority Nears Deal With Church at Ground Zero

A church destroyed during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, is close to getting a new home at the corner of Liberty and Greenwich streets.

St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have reached a tentative agreement on the site, and the Port Authority's board of directors will vote on the deal at a meeting today.

Negotiations had stalled due to disagreements about the funding for and exact location of the replacement for the church. The inability to strike a deal has impeded the Port Authority from building the southern foundation wall at ground zero and finalizing designs for an underground vehicle security screening center at the former World Trade Center site.

A Port Authority source said the agreement calls for the bistate agency, which owns the 16-acre site, to provide $20 million for the St. Nicholas reconstruction effort. Half of that would come from JPMorgan Chase as part of its commitment to develop the Tower 5 site.

When the executive director of the Port Authority, Christopher Ward, presented his assessment of the World Trade Center site last month, he laid out 15 unresolved obstacles, one of which was finalizing a deal with the leaders of St. Nicholas. According to the source, the deal calls for the new church to be built out to a maximum size of 8,100 square feet.

A spokesman for St. Nicholas was unavailable for comment yesterday.