The state’s Liberty Development Corporation authorized issuance of $1.6 billion in Liberty Bonds yesterday for a $2 billion, 40-story office building near ground zero to house the consolidated world headquarters of Goldman Sachs Group Incorporated.

A spokeswoman for the Empire State Development Corporation, which controls the Liberty agency, said several other approvals are necessary before the bonds are issued, and a public hearing will be scheduled for September. The spokeswoman, Deborah Wetzel, said yesterday’s vote approved the bond issue unanimously.

Some mayoral candidates and some civic groups have criticized the Goldman deal, on the ground that the four month delay in completing negotiations with the banking giant cost the city and the state better terms.

Other incentives planned for Goldman include at least $150 million in tax breaks. Yesterday, the Empire State Development Corporation approved about $23 million in job retention grants as part of the larger deal. Other tax incentives will proceed through the Battery Park City Authority, a state agency, according to a spokeswoman for the city’s Economic Development Corporation, Janel Patterson.

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress authorized the city and the state each to issue $4 billion in tax-exempt Liberty Bonds, with a total of $6.4 billion allotted for commercial projects and $1.6 billion for residential. The Goldman Sachs deal represents 25% of the city’s and state’s total commercial allotment, and more than twice the second-highest allocation, the $650 million authorized through the city’s Economic Development Corporation for a Bank of America building near Bryant Park in Midtown.

The developer who has a lease for the former site of the World Trade Center, Larry Silverstein, has said he is seeking the remaining $3.4 billion in commercial bonds to help finance the Freedom Tower and five other office towers planned for ground zero.

Ms. Patterson said the city corporation had a hand in reviewing the Goldman Sachs application through a joint city-state committee, but the bonds will be issued from the state’s bond allocation. The EDC president, Andrew Alper, recused himself from this deal because he is a former executive of Goldman.

Government officials’ negotiations with the banking giant over the same office tower unraveled last April due to elements that included security concerns about a nearby underground tunnel. At the time, the terms contained only $1 billion in Liberty Bonds and less money in tax incentives.

A Goldman Sachs spokeswoman, Andrea Raphael, declined to comment yesterday. A spokesman for Governor Pataki, Joanna Rose, issued a statement last night that said: “This project would exemplify why Congress created the Liberty Bond program by spurring development of an anchor tenant immediately adjacent to the World Trade Center site and maintaining and creating thousands of jobs.”

The executive director of a development accountability think tank, Good Jobs First, Greg LeRoy, said in a telephone interview that the additional tax breaks included in the real estate deal were unlikely to have influenced Goldman Sachs as significantly as other factors, including the Manhattan work force, the downtown infrastructure, and the proximity to other financial institutions.