3 World Trade Center

Despite obstacles, completion is in sight.

Located on the old site of the 242-ft.-tall Marriott World Trade Center hotel at 175 Greenwich Street, 3 World Trade Center (WTC) is scheduled to open in early 2018. The tower’s long journey began when Richard Rogers of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners was chosen to be the architect in May 2006. The drawings were completed, and ground was broken, but progress was impeded in subsequent years as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and Silverstein Properties argued over the building’s height due to leasing and funding issues. The recession was still a factor in decisionmaking back then, but, once the advertising and media company GroupM signed a lease as the anchor tenant, construction resumed.

3 WTC will stand 1,079 ft., 80 stories tall. With 2.5 million rentable sq. ft., it will hold approximately 17,000 employees. Its 64-ft., three-story-high office lobby will provide a broad view of the 9/11 Memorial Plaza outside. To the tower’s left lies the new WTC Port Authority Trans-Hudson Station, the “Oculus,” designed by Santiago Calatrava and in operation since March 3. As stirring as the station, tower, museum and waterfalls in the Memorial pools are

so are the people. 3 WTC’s superintendent, Frank Hussey, watched the 9/11 terrorist attacks from an antenna on a nearby building. He has returned to work every day since then. Over the last 14 years, he has been able to watch the tower grow into something even greater than before.