It will cost about $8.2 billion to replace most of the World Trade Center and cover business losses, experts hired by developer Larry Silverstein said.
Subtracting payments already received from two small insurers, Silverstein’s attorneys say the remaining group of insurers still owes the developer $6.77 billion.
“That’s how much we will ask the jury to give us,” said Marc Wolinsky, counsel for the developer’s company, Silverstein Properties, that holds a 99-year lease on the trade center.
Silverstein’s lawyers last week provided Swiss Re with an estimate of $2.5 billion for business-interruption losses, plus another $5.7 billion as the value of the Twin Towers and other buildings just leased from the Port Authority.
Wolinsky expects a federal jury trial to start Nov. 4.
On Monday, worried about the “subconscious impact” on jurors, Silverstein’s legal team plans to ask federal Judge John Martin to allow it “to determine the true intent” of an ad campaign started last spring by Swiss Re, one of Silverstein’s insurers, that attempts to depict the firm as a good New York citizen.
Swiss Re lawyer Barry Ostrager said Silverstein has been “stretching the merits of his claim” through “a relentless public relations campaign, when he may play no role in the rebuilding.”
