Roland Betts, the official at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation with perhaps the highest profile-he is the owner of Chelsea Piers and a college buddy of President George Bush - also had a huge hand in the city being selected as the U.S. bid for the 2012 Olympics. He is on the ten-member U.S. Olympic Committee task force that recently chose New York over San Francisco.
But Betts is not the only person who is involved both in rebuilding lower Manhattan and in the push to make New York Olympic City 2012. Some are worried that these two big projects will compete for attention, time and money from developers, city officials, and planners, and that rebuilding efforts may come up short. Can the city really handle two such large public works projects at once?
Time and Money
New York is the U.S. pick for the games but will still need to compete with as many as 12 other international cities when the International Olympic Committee makes its decision in 2005. Should New York be chosen, the city's plan proposes creating an Olympic Village with 4,400 high-rise apartments in Long Island City, extending the No. 7 train all the way west in Manhattan, and building a new stadium on the West Side. It also joins two lakes in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park to create a rowing and canoeing course and builds a new waterfront park in Williamsburg.
City officials and Olympics backers have repeatedly claimed that these projects will not siphon funds from downtown. "They don't compete against each other," said Laz Benitez, a spokesperson for NYC2012, the Olympics bid organization. "Our plan is based on private moneys." Much of the money would come from merchandising and licensing, TV rights and ticket sales, said Benitez. Olympics financing will not draw from the city's budget or federal funds for rebuilding.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said that plans to develop the city's West Side--including building a new stadium and extending the No. 7 subway line--will go ahead regardless of which city is chosen for 2012. This means that some construction is scheduled to begin before the city even knows whether or not it will indeed host the games, and work on transportation in lower Manhattan may coincide with extending the No. 7 train.
What the Olympics Will Do
New York magazine said earlier this year is sprinkle "fairy dust on projects that armchair urbanists have lusted after for years," including connecting the Long Island Rail Road and the Metro North commuter lines, expanding the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center expansion, and creating new housing.
"It's completely consistent with the direction in which the city should proceed, on the scale of Robert Moses," Donald Elliott, a city-planning-commission chairman under Mayor John Lindsay, has said. And Bloomberg said the city hopes "to use the Olympics to build for the decades to follow the closing ceremonies."
Some question, though, whether New York can handle the crush of financing and building all these projects between now and the games' opening ceremonies.
Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff has said that transportation improvements in lower Manhattan are likely to be finished far ahead of the No. 7's estimated completion in 2010. But the extension of the 7 train is slated to begin in late 2004 or early 2005, so that construction will be underway before the International Olympic Committee meets in July 2005 to determine which city will host the 2012 games.
Doctoroff and others say that Olympic plans will help keep lower Manhattan rebuilding projects on schedule. "The Olympics actually act as a catalyst for development, it sets a deadline," said Benitez, from NYC2012.
Double-Duty Officials
But while the two projects may not be competing for the same funding, they are vying for attention from a number of officials, planners and business people who are involved in both efforts.
Five board members of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation--including New York Stock Exchange chairman Richard Grasso and Verizon president Paul Crotty -- also sit on the board of the Olympics bid.
Board member Roland Betts's involvement goes even further. He is a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee task force that decided to give New York, not San Francisco, the nomination for 2012.
Critics suggested that Betts should step down from the 10-person panel, saying that he would benefit if the Olympics are held in New York and even suggesting that he had a grudge against San Francisco. Last year, San Francisco officials rejected Betts' bid to build a Chelsea-Piers-like sports center in the Bay Area. While the New York Olympic bid doesn't make Chelsea Piers a location for sports events, some suggest that the piers are just a few blocks south of the proposed Olympic stadium and would be sure to benefit from the new West Side development. Despite these claims, the U.S. Olympics ethics oversight committee decided that Betts could be impartial and should stay on the panel. "I have bent over backwards to be fair and objective," Betts told the San Francisco Chronicle.
The founder of the city's Olympic plan, Dan Doctoroff, stepped down to join the Bloomberg administration, and now oversees both rebuilding efforts and the city's Olympic bid as deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding. Top rebuilding official Alexander Garvin designed the Olympic plan, but is no longer officially involved.
Civic groups say that officials and planners should put rebuilding downtown before plans for a two-week event, even if it is one of the world's biggest. "We need the city to focus time on developing economic strategies for lower Manhattan and we really need Dan Doctoroff's full attention at the moment," said Beverly Willis, founder of Rebuild Downtown Our Town. "We desperately need a real push right now in lower Manhattan."
Ask Roland Betts about the Olympics plan and other questions about rebuilding lower Manhattan on Friday, November 22 between 1:30 and 2:30 PM in a live chat on Gotham Gazette.
In San Francisco, the biotechnology industry provides jobs for 75,000 people. In Boston, 25,000 jobs. In New York, however, fewer than 1,000 work for a biotech company.
Now, a new plan to bring a biotech hub to lower Manhattan aims to more than double that number, and fill 300,000 square feet of office space vacated after the September 11 attacks.
But the proposal, which was developed by a coalition of city groups and institutions, has several obstacles. First, biotechnology companies tend to cluster in places where a large number of similar companies already exist. Right now, that means Boston, San Diego, Washington D.C. or San Francisco, not New York.
Another setback, according to New York City Partnership president Kathryn Wylde, is that some of the largest tax breaks available to companies in New York don't apply to biotechnology firms.
"You can build a steel plant with triple-tax exempt financing, or you could build a doll factory. But we can't build for the 21st century," said Wylde, referring to breaks from city, state and federal taxes.
Wylde and other advocates of the biotech hub plan, called the Lower Manhattan Biotech Initiative, are calling on the city and state to make it easier for companies to locate in lower Manhattan. They say that a biotech center downtown would be a key component to rebuilding the area near the World Trade Center site.
A HUB FOR THE FUTURE?
The biotech industry is often called one of the fastest growing industries in the country. It develops and markets products based on genetic engineering. For example, biotechnology firms create new medicines from plant and animal genes. Medicines created by biotech firms treat cancers, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis and other conditions. But some industry practices -- such as genetically modifying crops, called frankenfood -- have raised ethical debates.
The lower Manhattan project proposes to convert 300,000 square feet of office space, vacated after the 9/11 attacks, into space suitable for biotechnology use. The center could provide about 1,300 new jobs downtown. All of the city's major medical institutions have signed on to the lower Manhattan plan, saying that it could spur new centers throughout the city.
Advocates say focusing it in lower Manhattan could draw companies that are now heading to cities like San Francisco or Boston. "We are not considered a center," said Wylde, "and it is a self-fulfilling prophecy."
"The prospects for biotechnology here could change, rapidly and dramatically, if we decided to promote our many strengths," Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center president Harold Varmus wrote in a recent editorial supporting the lower Manhattan project. Varmus said that, after moving here three years ago, he was frustrated to see so few biotechnology companies in New York, even though the city's centers and universities make the city one of the largest recipients of National Institute of Health funds for medical research.
STATE AND CITY SUPPORT
The biotech plan has received the backing of Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, as well as some financial support from state officials. In March, Lower Manhattan Development Corporation president John Whitehead said he would support a hub downtown. On October 2, State Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver announced that the state would give $5 million towards the initiative.
Building a downtown biotech hub would cost $90 million, and some see the state's contribution as a meager start, considering that Governor George Pataki has given nearly $200 million to fund similar projects in Buffalo, Syracuse and Long Island.
"The $5 million is barely a drop in the bucket for what really is needed for the downtown biotech project, or for the biotech industry in New York City," said Jonathan Bowles, research director at the Center for an Urban Future. "All of the big bucks are going elsewhere in New York State."
In August, Bowles's organization issued a report arguing that Albany should focus funds for biotech development in New York City, not upstate or in the suburbs, because the city has the medical research institutions and scientists that the industry needs to thrive.
DOES IT MAKE SENSE?
Is a biotech hub a good idea for downtown? Economic development professor and author Richard Florida blasted the plan in a New York Times editorial, saying that it doesn't make sense to pump 9/11 resources into an industry that may not keep growing so quickly.
"Biotech startups are complex and iffy, burning tons of cash through long development cycles, and even a substantial biotech sector would hardly be able to replace financial services," Florida wrote. "It's never wise for communities to bet a big chunk of the farm on one industry--be it biotech or baseball. Even a hot growth industry may cool off or evolve in unexpected ways."
Bowles, from the Center for an Urban Future, said that he can understand why Florida and others are concerned. "However, I think that at a time when we really need to be diversifying the economy, biotech is just one sector we need to be focusing on," he said. "It is one of the few sectors that actually shows promise for growth."
STUDIO DANIEL LIBESKIND'S
Memory Foundations
The plan includes:
» | A 1,776 foot tower |
» | Memorial space below street level (in "The Pit") |
» | Park of Heroes |
» | Wedge of Light |
The design by architect Daniel Libeskind featuring a 1,776-foot spire and an open pit where the twin towers once stood was chosen Wednesday night as the final plan for the World Trade Center site. The plan also features a museum at the site and structures that will create memorial spaces free of shadows each September 11. The single spire will be the tallest structure in the world.
Rebuilding officials selected the Libeskind design over the twin latticework towers by the THINK architect team. The choice was made by a committee with representatives of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the governor and the mayor. Both Governor George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg favored the Libeskind design. Lower Manhattan Development Corporation Chairman John Whitehead reportedly telephoned Libeskind with the news, telling the architect that his "vision has brought hope and inspiration to a city still recovering from a terrible tragedy."
The plan still faces challenges from government officials, developers, and victims families and will likely be modified.
Libeskind said his plan was the "bargain basement" in cost and estimated his design could be built for $330 million. However, it is still unclear how the memorial will be paid for, when the buildings will be built, and whether the final towers will look like those in the design. Developer Larry Silverstein, who holds the lease on the World Trade Center site, has said he does not like the plan.
Libeskind has spent the last month making changes to his design based on recommendations from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and other officials. His original design called for a memorial at the trade center foundation 70 feet below ground. That has been changed to 30 feet, allowing for infrastructure and transportation underneath.
The final plan was selected from nine proposals for redeveloping the trade center site, where nearly 2,800 people died September 11, 2001. The design competition was launched after an initial set of plans, released in July, was rejected by the public and officials.