NYC rebuilding agency prepares to roll out trade center designs

NEW YORK -- As officials prepare seven alternative plans for reconstruction of the World Trade Center -- including a memorial in the sky and the world's tallest tower -- doubts about who is in charge of the process threaten to muffle the fanfare.

"Things are very unclear," said Mark Ginsberg, a leader of New York New Visions, a coalition of architects and planners. "There are all these different agencies coming out with different plans -- hopefully with some coordination."

The Lower Manhattan Development Corp., a city-state agency created after last year's terrorist attacks to guide downtown redevelopment, plans to unveil seven new designs Dec. 18.

Several of the plans include a tower that would be the tallest in the world, said a redevelopment official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Malaysia's Petronas Twin Towers, at 1,483 feet, are now the world's tallest.

All of the plans include memorials to the victims of the Sept. 11 attack, the official said. One plan places it on top of a building, while another incorporates a formal, sunken garden.

Separate plans

But as the plans near public release, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the 16-acre trade center site, says it expects to produce a separate master plan early next year.

The development corporation released its first batch of six proposals for the trade center last July. The plans all featured office buildings grouped around a memorial to the Sept. 11 victims -- and all were dismissed as bland and boring.

The agency then put out a call for new architects to produce designs with relaxed requirements for the amount of commercial space the new buildings must accommodate.

A final plan is to be chosen in February, and a design for the memorial is to be selected in a separate process by next Sept. 11, the second anniversary of the attack.