Aug 3, 2006 5:57 pm US/Eastern
Ground Zero Memorial Construction To Recommence
New Budget Of $510 Million Finalized, Contract Awarded
NEW YORK (AP) ―
Construction on the Sept. 11 memorial at ground zero will resume this month after several weeks of delays caused by a redesign to cut its price in half.
Preliminary work on the "Reflecting Absence" memorial began in March and stopped in May after contractors said the cost was approaching $1 billion for the huge reflecting pools that will mark the destroyed World Trade Center towers' footprints.
The memorial and underground Sept. 11 museum was redesigned, this time at a $510 million budget, and the two organizations in charge of building it on Thursday awarded a $17 million contract to begin creating the foundations.
Work by the heavy construction company E.E. Cruz, of Holmdel, N.J., will begin in the next few weeks.
The trade center site's owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, last month agreed to take over building the memorial and contribute up to $195 million of the cost. The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, which will run the memorial, said it would focus on fundraising and the design.
The foundation, which had suspended fundraising, needs to raise $170 million more to pay for construction and another $49 million for each year after its opening in 2009 to cover operating costs.
The foundation's acting president, Joseph Daniels, said last week it was exploring options such as a federal appropriation each year, like the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum receives, or a fee to enter the museum to pay for operating costs. The foundation also was working on a plan to reduce the operating costs, he said.
"The institution is going to need a recurring revenue stream," Daniels said. The cost to operate the facilities is "a nontrivial amount of money, and we have to raise it every year."
The state Legislature in June approved bills that would bar any state money from going to the museum if a fee is charged. Gov. George Pataki has said he would veto the measure.
Construction will begin on 115 to 130 concrete footings that will form the base of the reflecting pools. The first will be built outside the tower footprints. A Sept. 11 family group had sued to block construction on the footprints, saying they were prized historic resources.
The suit was dismissed, but the Coalition of 9/11 Families has appealed. Coalition member Anthony Gardner said he hoped a deal could be worked out that would avoid direct development on the bedrock slab at the towers' base.
(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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