With a glut of commercial office space and the financial industry in meltdown, the Port Authority is actively looking to develop World Trade Center Tower 5 as a luxury hotel and residential building, The Post has learned.
A hotel and residential tower would rise at the current site of the Deutsche Bank building and would replace an earlier plan to sell the site to JP Morgan Chase, which had sought to build a financial tower with trading floors bulging off its upper stories.
Sources familiar with the bi-state agency’s plans say the market for a luxury hotel and apartments has emerged as a stronger bet than holding out for a commercial tenant, now that JP Morgan is out of the picture.
“Basically, it’s what the market will bear; that’s the whole point of this,” said a downtown official familiar with the plan for Tower 5.
The PA’s latest plans for Tower 5 are actually the same tactic the agency pursued in 2006, after taking control of the Deutsche Bank site and the Freedom Tower in a deal that left developer Larry Silverstein with just three towers.
The agency had initially sought to sell the development rights for a residential building. But that plan changed as the demand for commercial space soared.
“It’s back to the future,” one downtown observer said of the move back to a hotel and residential tower.
The PA for months has been pushing to downsize the amount of office space that will be built at the World Trade Center for fear that there wouldn’t be enough tenants for all five towers.
A PA proposal to delay construction of two of Silverstein’s three towers on Greenwich Street and replace them with low-rise retail buildings has put the agency at loggerheads with the developer.
“The Silverstein team has not wavered on rebuilding the World Trade Center, and we never will,” said Janno Lieber, president of Silverstein’s World Trade Center Properties.
But PA officials have balked at Silverstein’s request for additional help in financing his towers.
A PA spokesman yesterday insisted it’s Silverstein’s “responsibility is to privately finance and build three towers. The Port Authority’s responsibility is to focus public resources on the projects that have the most public benefit.”
To get the project back on track, Mayor Bloomberg has called a summit this week of the New York and New Jersey governors, the PA and Silverstein.