Lawmakers May Cap the Cost Of 9/11 Memorial

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The New York Sun

Elaborate designs for the World Trade Center Memorial will likely be slashed following an announcement yesterday that Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Pataki, and Governor Corzine want to cap the cost of the project at $500 million, half of recent estimates.

Mr. Bloomberg said the cost of the memorial should be weighed against the need for new police stations and schools, and for more teachers. The mayor said he and the two governors had discussed a plan to cap the spiraling memorial costs and all are in agreement.

The mayor’s announcement came as a surprise to board members of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit that will build, own, and operate the memorial. One board member, Debra Burlingame, the sister of a pilot whose hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, said the foundation is awaiting an updated cost estimate in the next few days from the construction company Bovis. She questioned the wisdom of putting “an arbitrary cap” on the cost, but she acknowledged the need for cuts.

“Whatever needs to be done to bring those numbers down will get done,” Ms. Burlingame told The New York Sun. “The plan as designed is too expensive. You have to either change the design or raise more money.”

She added: “But what if it costs $510 million?”

The initial estimate for “Reflecting Absence,” the six-acre memorial designed by Michael Arad and Peter Walker, was $490 million, which would have made it the most expensive public memorial ever built. The project would include hundreds of trees, pools, waterfalls, and an underground museum. It was selected following the largest design competition in history, in 2003. The memorial is expected to draw millions of visitors each year.

New estimates for the cost of building the memorial are $1 billion, the Associated Press reported yesterday. The mayor has estimated annual operating costs to be between $50 million and $60 million.

The memorial will be built using $250 million in federal funds under the city and state’s discretion, a $100 million grant from the Port Authority, controlled by New York and New Jersey, and private donations. To date, about $130 million has been raised privately, but some have criticized the slow pace of fund-raising. A $500 million cap would mean that the fund-raising is nearly complete.

The president of the memorial foundation, Gretchen Dykstra said in a statement: “The foundation is delighted that conversations are happening between the mayor and the governors of New York and New Jersey and looks forward to further clarification of the statements made today.”

The Partnership for New York City, a business group, said in a statement that putting a cap on the budget would help close lingering negotiations over the project.

“Our elected officials should be applauded for insisting that the commitment to funding the memorial be a priority, but also balanced against the other investments required to rebuild Lower Manhattan,” the statement read.


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