7 World Trade Center

History

The original 7 World Trade Center was a 47-story skyscraper with a red granite facade. It opened in 1987 as part of the original World Trade Center building complex. The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks caused the collapse of the World Trade Center; falling debris from the collapsing 110-story Twin Towers destroyed or severely damaged nearby buildings, including 7 World Trade Center, which collapsed shortly thereafter.

Construction

The construction phase of the new 7 World Trade Center began on May 7, 2002, with the installation of a fence around the construction site. Restoring the Consolidated Edison substation was an urgent priority to meet power demands of Lower Manhattan; the utility stated that it needed to replace four of the ten destroyed transformers by 2003. Because 7 World Trade Center is separate from the main 16 acre World Trade Center site, Larry Silverstein required approval only from the landowner, the Port Authority, before he could rebuild the tower. Construction of the power substation was completed in October 2003, and the substation went into service in May 2004.

Work next proceeded on the office tower itself. An unusual approach was used in constructing the building; erecting the steel frame before adding the concrete core. This approach allowed the construction schedule to be shortened by a few months. By July 2005, American Express Financial Advisors was planning to lease 20000 ft2 of space, making it the building's first tenant. Although Silverstein intended for the building's design to attract tenants, he wanted occupants to pay 50 $/ft2 to lease space by 2005, which New York magazine called "easily the highest price in lower Manhattan".

Construction was completed in 2006 at a cost of $700 million. Though Silverstein received $861 million from insurance on the old building, he owed more than $400 million on its mortgage. Costs to rebuild were covered by $475 million in Liberty Bonds, which provide tax-exempt financing to help stimulate rebuilding in Lower Manhattan and insurance money that remained after other expenses.

A 15,000 sqft triangular park was created between the extended Greenwich Street and West Broadway by David Childs with Ken Smith and his colleague, Annie Weinmayr, of Ken Smith Landscape Architect. The park comprises an open central plaza with a fountain and flanking groves of sweetgum trees and boxwood shrubs. At the center of the fountain, sculptor Jeff Koons created a 9 ft stainless steel sculpture called Balloon Flower (Red).

Completion and early years

2000s

The building was officially opened on May 23, 2006. The opening was marked by a free concert featuring Suzanne Vega, Citizen Cope, Bill Ware Vibes, Brazilian Girls, Ollabelle, Pharaoh's Daughter, Ronan Tynan (of the Irish Tenors), and special guest Lou Reed. Prior to its opening, in March 2006, the new building was used as a filming location for the movie Perfect Stranger.

The building was 10 percent leased by August 2006. Several of the unoccupied upper floors were used for events such as charity lunches, fashion shows, and black-tie galas. Silverstein Properties allowed space in the new building to be used for these events as a means to draw people to see the building. From September 8 to October 7, 2006, the work of photographer Jonathan Hyman was displayed in "An American Landscape", a free exhibit hosted by the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, on the 45th floor of 7 World Trade Center. The exhibit consisted of 63 photographs that captured Americans' responses after the September 11 attacks.

In September 2006, Moody's signed a 20-year lease for 15 floors at 7 World Trade Center; prior to Moody's lease, only eight floors had been occupied. Other tenants that had signed leases in 7 World Trade Center in its first two years included ABN AMRO, Ameriprise Financial Inc., DRW Trading Group, publisher Mansueto Ventures, and the New York Academy of Sciences. Silverstein Properties also had offices and the Silver Suites executive office suites at 7 World Trade Center. Architectural and engineering firms working on 1 World Trade Center, 150 Greenwich Street, 175 Greenwich Street, and 200 Greenwich Street also set up offices in the building. Two-thirds of the building's office space had been leased by April 2007. After ABN AMRO was acquired by the Royal Bank of Scotland, forex services provider FXDD subleased some of the Royal Bank of Scotland's space in 2009.

2010s to present

The law firm WilmerHale signed 200,000 ft2 at the building in April 2011. The building became fully leased that September after MSCI agreed to occupy 125,000 sqft on the top floor; other tenants at the time included FXDD, WilmerHale, and the bank WestLB. Following this, Silverstein announced in 2012 that he would refinance the building with a $452.8 million Liberty bond issue and a $125 million commercial mortgage-backed security loan. At the time, the building was valued at $940 million, in large part because it was fully occupied. FXDD subleased its space to engineering company Permasteelisa in 2015 and artificial intelligence firm IPsoft in 2016. The building was 94.8 percent occupied by 2017. By then, roughly three-quarters of the space was occupied by four tenants, including Moody's, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and WilmerHale.

Wedding planning company Zola and the building's own architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill both leased space at 7 WTC in early 2019. This was followed in July 2019 by luxury drink brand Moët Hennessy and media company AccuWeather. After Mansueto Ventures and three other firms leased space at 7 WTC in April 2022, the building was 97 percent occupied. Shortly afterward, Silverstein Properties refinanced the property with a $458 million loan from Goldman Sachs.

Architecture

The new 7 World Trade Center has 52 stories and is 741 ft tall. The building has 42 floors of leasable space, starting at the 11th floor, and a total of 1.7 e6sqft of office space. The first ten floors house an electrical substation which provides power to much of Lower Manhattan. The office tower has a narrower footprint at ground level than did its predecessor, so the course of Greenwich Street could be restored to reunite TriBeCa and the Financial District. The original building, on the other hand, had bordered West Broadway on the east, necessitating the destruction of Greenwich Street between Barclay Street and the northern border of the World Trade Center superblock.

Facade

David Childs of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill worked in conjunction with glass artist and designer James Carpenter to create a design that uses ultra-clear, low-iron glass to provide reflectivity and light. There are stainless-steel spandrels behind the glass to help reflect sunlight. The spandrels are textured and are curved in a manner that reflects light both from each story's window sills and from the sky. On the lower stories, there are 15 by panels with steel triangular prisms. There are 130,000 prisms in total, which are tilted at different angles to reflect natural light from the sky. The window panes on the upper floors are 13.6 ft high and are made of white glass with low concentrations of iron. Stainless steel used in the facade is molybdenum-containing Type 316, which provides improved resistance to corrosion.

The new 7 World Trade Center was built above the Con Edison substation. When the current building was constructed, the transformer vaults were rearranged into an 80 ft shell at the building's base. To enclose the power substation and improve its aesthetics, the base of the building has a curtain wall with stainless steel louvers that provide ventilation for the machinery. The transformers each weigh 168 ST and are 20 ft tall. There are also radiators with vertical cooling blades facing the street, which in turn cool down the transformers.

There is a cable-net glass wall on the eastern elevation of the facade, just above the Greenwich Street entrance. This cable-net wall measures 50 by across. During the day, the curtain wall reflects light, while at night it is illuminated by blue and white LED lights. The curtain wall has 220,000 LEDs; at night, the prisms on the facade reflect light from each LED onto the street. The curtain wall around the lobby uses heavily laminated, heat-strengthened glass that meets high standards for blast resistance. At night, a large cube of light above the lobby also emanates blue light, while during the day it provides white light to the lobby, and at dusk, it transitions to violet and back to blue.

Features

Inside the main lobby, artist Jenny Holzer created an LED installation with glowing text moving across wide plastic panels. The wall measures 65 ft wide and 14 ft tall. Holzer worked with Klara Silverstein, the wife of Larry Silverstein, to select poetry for the art installation. The wall of the lobby is structurally fortified as a security measure. On the upper stories, some tenants customized the design of their spaces. The space occupied by Mansueto Ventures was designed to maximize natural light exposure and has an open floor plan. The 40th-floor space used by the New York Academy of Sciences was designed by H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture and includes a reception lobby with an openwork screen; a 296-seat event room; and a horizontal 72 ft mural.

7 World Trade Center is equipped with Otis destination elevators to reduce dwell times and travel times. After pressing their destination floor number on a keypad in the lobby, passengers are directed to specific elevators that will stop at the selected floor; the elevator cabs do not contain buttons. The elevator system is integrated with the lobby key-card system, which can identify the floor on which an employee works, then automatically call an elevator for that floor.

WSP Cantor Seinuk served as structural engineer on the project, while Jaros, Baum & Bolles was the MEP engineer. Nearly 30 percent of structural steel used in the building consists of recycled steel. Rainwater is collected and used for irrigation of the park and to cool the building. Along with other sustainable design features, the building is designed to allow in plenty of natural light, power is metered to tenants to encourage them to conserve energy, the heating steam is reused to generate some power for the building, and recycled materials are used for insulation and interior materials.

The building was promoted as one of the safest skyscrapers in the U.S. upon its completion According to Silverstein Properties, it "incorporate[s] a host of life-safety enhancements that will become the prototype for new high-rise construction." The building has 2 ft reinforced-concrete and fireproofed elevator and stairway access shafts. The original building used only drywall to line these shafts. The stairways are wider than in the original building to permit faster egress.

References

References

1. Bagli, Charles V.. (May 8, 2002). "As a Hurdle Is Cleared, Building Begins At Ground Zero". The New York Times.
2. "7 World Trade Center – The Skyscraper Center". Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.
3. [https://www.som.com/project/7-world-trade-center 7 World Trade Center] {{webarchive. link. (December 11, 2013, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill)
4. See: * [http://silversteinproperties.com/commercial/7-world-trade-center/ Building Tenants] {{webarchive. link. (February 5, 2017, Silverstein Properties *)
5. "About the WTC". Wtc.com.
6. (September 2005). "Design, Construction, and Maintenance of Structural and Life Safety Systems (NCSTAR 1-1)". National Institute of Standards and Technology.
7. "Seven World Trade Center (pre-9/11)". Emporis.com.
8. "History of the World Trade Center". Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
9. (February 12, 2002). "Rescuing the Buildings Beyond Ground Zero". The New York Times.
10. Dunlap, David W. (April 11, 2002). "21st-Century Plans, but Along 18th-Century Paths". The New York Times.
11. Bagli, Charles V. (January 31, 2002). "Developer's Pace at 7 World Trade Center Upsets Some". The New York Times.
12. Dunlap, David W.. (May 25, 2004). "A New Source Of Power Rises Over Ground Zero".
13. Post, Nadine M. (September 12, 2005). "Strategy for Seven World Trade Center Exceeds Expectations". Engineering News Record.
14. Fried, Joseph P.. (July 26, 2005). "7 World Trade Center Is Said to Be Close to Signing Its First Tenant".
15. Lisberg, Adam. (July 25, 2005). "AMEX IS ON WAY TO 7 WTC. It'll be first real tenant".
16. (May 17, 2006). "Major Step at Ground Zero: 7 World Trade Center Opening". Architectural Record.
17. Herman, Eric. (May 31, 2002). "No Tenants for New 7 WTC, Construction to Begin with Financing in Doubt". Daily News (New York).
18. Pristin, Terry. (July 12, 2006). "A Pot of Tax-Free Bonds for Post-9/11 Projects Is Empty". The New York Times.
19. Collins, Glenn. (July–August 2006). "A Prism with Prose — Seven World Trade Center". New York Academy of Science.
20. Dunlap, David W. (May 24, 2006). "Luster of 7 World Trade Center Has Tattered Reminder of 9/11". The New York Times.
21. Stevenson, Peter. (May 23, 2006). "Building Opens At 7 World Trade Center".
22. (May 22, 2006). "7 World Trade Center Opens with Musical Fanfare". Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC).
23. Westfeldt, Amy. (May 23, 2006). "First Rebuilt Skyscraper at WTC Opens". [[The Washington Post]].
24. (March 2006). "Under Cover, Tower 7 is no 'Stranger' to fame". Downtown Express.
25. Spitz, Rebecca. (August 31, 2006). "9/11: Five Years Later: 7 World Trade Open For Business, Lacking Tenants". NY1 News.
26. Birkner, Gabrielle. (May 14, 2007). "The City's Hottest Event Space? Try 7 World Trade Center". New York Sun.
27. (2009). "September 11: The Burden of the Ephemeral". Western Folklore.
28. Lipton, Jeff. (September 7, 2006). "9/11 museum takes shapeFormer Five Towner leads creation of memorial".
29. (August 8, 2006). "Two Photo Exhibits Open Near WTC Site".
30. Davis, Nicole. (August 31, 2006). "Moving on, despite the pull of the past, at 9/11 exhibit".
31. (September 20, 2006). "Moody's signs on dotted line at 7WTC". Gothamist.
32. Bagli, Charles V.. (June 20, 2006). "7 World Trade Center Gets a Major Tenant".
33. Pristin, Terry. (February 28, 2007). "Lower Manhattan: A Relative Bargain but Filling Up Fast". The New York Times.
34. (April 10, 2007). "7 World Trade Snags Two New Leases".
35. Sosnowski, Tom. (July 26, 2006). "7 WTC Inks Mansueto to 40,000 SF".
36. Dunlap, David W.. (October 30, 2006). "For Science Academy, Move to World Trade Center Is Like Going Home".
37. Levere, Jane. (January 29, 2013). "Seeing Big Promise in Manhattan Corporate Apartments". The New York Times.
38. Dunlap, David W. (January 25, 2007). "What a View to Behold, And It's Really Something". The New York Times.
39. Geminder, Emily. (November 30, 2009). "Midtown, Schmidtown! Currency Trader FXDD Subleases 40K Feet in 7 WTC".
40. Colvin, Jill. (April 5, 2011). "Law Firm Signs City's First 'Green Lease' for 7 World Trade Center".
41. Chaban, Matt. (September 19, 2011). "Zero Ground: 7 World Trade Center Now Fully Leased".
42. (September 19, 2011). "7 World Trade Center Skyscraper Fully Leased".
43. (September 19, 2011). "7 WTC fully leased as MSCI signs for 125,000 square feet".
44. Hlavenka, Jacqueline. (March 19, 2012). "Silverstein To Refinance $577M in Bonds at 7 WTC".
45. Brown, Eliot. (March 19, 2012). "For Silverstein, Time to Celebrate". [[The Wall Street Journal]].
46. Santani, Hitem. (March 4, 2015). "A firm key to the rebuilding of 7WTC will now call it home".
47. Cullen, Terence. (June 9, 2016). "Artificial Intelligence Company IPsoft Takes 27K SF at 7 WTC".
48. Gourarie, Chava. (December 1, 2017). "Fitch upgrades CMBS debt on 7 WTC".
49. Kim, Betsy. (January 17, 2019). "Zola Gets Hitched to 7 WTC".
50. Baird-Remba, Rebecca. (May 6, 2019). "Architecture Firm SOM Nails Down 80K SF at 7 WTC".
51. Rizzi, Nicholas. (July 2, 2019). "Moët Hennessy Ditching Chelsea for 7 WTC".
52. (July 11, 2019). "Itʼs raining deals at 7 World Trade Center".
53. Young, Celia. (April 7, 2022). "Publisher, Investment Manager Each Take 40K SF at 7 WTC".
54. (April 9, 2022). "Silverstein Properties signs four leases at 7 World Trade Center".
55. (April 7, 2022). "Silverstein Scores $458M Refinancing at 7 World Trade Center".
56. Morphy, Erika. (April 7, 2022). "7 World Trade Center Lands 104k-SF in Leases; Secures $457.5M Refi".
57. Ramirez, Anthony. (September 30, 2004). "7 World Trade Center". World Trade Center}}
    {{cite news.
58. "Seven World Trade Center (post-9/11)". Emporis.com.
59. Collins, Glenn. (June 27, 2005). "Built to Be Noticed, and to Return the Favor".
60. Houska, Catherine. (January 2004). "New 7 World Trade Center Uses Type 316 Stainless Steel". International Molybdenum Association News Letter.
61. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. (2009). "Architecture of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 1997-2008". Monacelli Press.
62. Blum, Andrew. (March 28, 2006). "A World of Light and Glass". BusinessWeek.
63. Hill, John. (2011). "Guide To Contemporary New York City Architecture". WW Norton.
64. (2006). "James Carpenter: Environmental Refractions". Princeton Architectural Press.
65. Garmhausen, Steve. (November 16, 2004). "Curtain (Wall) Time". Slatin Report.
66. (July 1, 2007). "7 World Trade Center — Outstanding Achievement, Exterior Lighting". Architectural Lighting Magazine.
67. Kolker, Robert. (April 8, 2005). "The Building Everyone Will Date But No One Will Marry".
68. Collins, Glenn. (March 6, 2006). "At Ground Zero, Accord Brings a Work of Art". The New York Times.
69. Wilson, Claire. (May 13, 2007). "An Open, Sunlit Space At 7 World Trade Center". The New York Times.
70. Angwin, Julia. (November 19, 2006). "No-button elevators take orders in lobby". Charleston Gazette (West Virginia).
71. Kretkowski, Paul. (March 2007). "First Up". ARCHI-TECH.
72. (November 2008). "NIST NCSTAR1-A: Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7". [[National Institute of Standards and Technology]].
73. Pogrebin, Robin. (April 16, 2006). "7 World Trade Center and Hearst Building: New York's Test Cases for Environmentally Aware Office Towers". The New York Times.
74. DePalma, Anthony. (January 20, 2004). "At Ground Zero, Rebuilding With Nature in Mind". The New York Times.
75. "Downtown Construction and Building Information". Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center.
76. (September 28, 2004). "Silverstein Properties Names CB Richard Ellis to Serve as Exclusive Leasing Agent for 7 World Trade Center". Silverstein Properties.
77. Reiss, Matthew. (March 2003). "Shortcuts to Safety". Metropolis Magazine / Skyscraper Safety Campaign.