Silverstein Properties now has two 3 million-square-foot options for a new 2 World Trade Center tower, and we’ve now learned the developer is leaning towards the BIG one.
The first was the original Norman Foster design proposed after the site’s master plan was created. It has distinctive lighted diamonds on its slanted top.
The other is the Bjarke Ingels Group, aka BIG, design that was created to house 20th Century Fox and News Corp., The Post’s parent. But the decision to nix the move earlier this year left the two designs in hand.
The BIG building has staggered, planted terraces facing the east but also makes it appear to be facing away from the 9/11 Memorial Plaza.
Silverstein’s chairman, Larry Silverstein, insisted that the BIG design shouldn’t be turned around, as I’ve always thought, and that it works “very well” with its current sitting.
“[The top of] Two was a distinguishing feature of Norman Foster’s design,” Silverstein said. “Opposed to what Bjarke Ingels proposed. We can go in either direction. Which way, we are not sure yet.”
But Silverstein added, “The probabilities are, and knowing the users we are talking to today, it will come down to the Bjarke Ingels.”
Other sources revealed those “users” grazing around the WTC campfire include both BlackRock and JPMorganChase, which, with at least 1 million-square-foot requirements, are naturally also kicking bricks at Hudson Yards, Manhattan West and other future market opportunities.
Meanwhile, architect BIG has also designed a dramatic new curtain wall and entrance for Vornado Realty Trust at Two Penn Plaza that would also serve as dramatic entryways for Madison Square Garden and Penn Station.
On Tuesday’s conference call and in its annual report, CEO Steve Roth revealed that the waving, 85-foot-high canopy, dubbed “Skirt,” extends out 65 feet and was inspired by Marilyn Monroe’s dress blowing upwards as she stood over a subway grate in “The Seven Year Itch.”
“We believe this design will become world-famous and a symbol of New York,” Roth added.
It’s Safety Week and construction executives are touring other people’s projects. On foggy Monday, Tappan Zee Constructors led a boat tour that weaved through the forest of pilings being tied together with girders for the upcoming $4 billion bridge.
To ensure worker safety, Bob Kick of TZC says all of the piers and stanchions have stairways and not just ladders.
Those stairs are also appreciated by the workers, as the eight tallest tower forms that will suspend the center span are almost all halfway to their final 419 feet and when complete will reach almost to the tops of their adjacent cranes.
The online spectacles retailer Warby Parker will open one of its rare bricks-and-mortar stores in Grand Central Terminal.
The eyeglass retailer hopes those waiting at the busy transit hub will stop and check out prescription, sun or fun frames.
The 1,357 square feet will carry their entire line to grab and go with prescription orders shipped within days. Reed Zukerman of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank represented the eyeglass experts in the deal with the MTA.
The company was founded as an online company in 2010 to provide quality eyeglasses at an affordable price. Its first store opened at 121 Greene St. in Soho in 2013 and there are now 23 stores.
The company was created after one of its founders lost his glasses on a backpacking trip and had to squint his way through a semester of college before being able to afford another pair. I understand completely as I once lost mine in a cow pasture and didn’t find them until the snow melted the following spring.
