Avi Schick was Eliot Spitzer’s choice to head the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), and so far David Paterson has not only kept him in the job, but added acting downstate CEO of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) to his responsibilities.
In a room overlooking Ground Zero, Schick sat down to discuss progress at the site, how the 16 acres fit into his overall vision for Lower Manhattan, the coming disappearance of the Deutsche Bank building and his thoughts on the future of the structure of the ESDC.
What follows is an edited transcript.

City Hall: A lot of people are paying attention to what happens in Lower Manhattan and Ground Zero. Does it make your job tougher when you have so many people analyzing every little decision that’s made?
Avi Schick: It adds a layer of complexity. You have to be cognizant of what’s going on around you. Ultimately, though, the way this job has to operate is just that you have to operate on making forward progress on that day and ultimately reaching the end line. It’s all about where we have to get and each day moving forward to get there.

CH: There are people who feel the progress on the 16 acres has been too slow. What do you say to them?
AS: Part of that, clearly, is history. There’s an enormous amount of history that occurred between September 12, 2001 and December 31, 2006 that I wasn’t involved with and wasn’t there for and so I can’t talk about that. What I could talk about is what we’ve done since I joined the LDMC in April of last year; and since then, the focus everyday has been on how we’re moving this forward. Is it a long, complex project? Absolutely. And so, I think there’s some element of frustration because of the five years that were spent before we got here, and we’re cognizant of that, but there’s nothing we can do about that. What we can do is make every moment in the present and future used properly.  

CH: When do you think the Freedom Tower and Ground Zero are realistically going to be open for business?
AS: I think the Freedom Tower is a building that’s going to be owned and operated by the Port Authority, so I’d probably let them speak as to their occupancy plans on that. As I said, we’re in a different environment than I think we were in the immediate post-9/11 period where everybody was concerned whether downtown would come back, and right now we know that downtown came back, and the residential sectors and retail sectors, commercial sector is strong, so what we have to do is do our business, get it built and get out of the way so that we’re not obstructing any of the progress that we’ve seen until now.

CH: But you’ll leave it to the Port Authority to say when there will be occupancy?
AS: I think the office buildings are all scheduled to go online at around 2012, it’s their building, the Silverstein building.

CH: Are you concerned that the possible delays in the construction of the Fulton Street Transit Hub could be a problem for redevelopment in Lower Manhattan?
AS: I don’t know that there’s going to be a delay. A couple months ago, the MTA announced there’s going to be some fiscal realities and they want to revisit some of the plans. I think there have been conversations since then to sense it was necessary. The downtown community has made clear its view about how important the project is and again, how important timeliness is, because right now people believe in downtown, it’s not like we need to promise new projects to convince them to come, we just need to deliver on the ones that have been promised and get out of the way so they can go about their business. And so we made that clear, we’re in the middle of conversations with the stakeholders downtown, and the MTA and I think everyone wants to deliver what was promised, I think that would be the best thing.

CH: But if the MTA’s apparently continuing fiscal problems do lead to delays, will that be an issue?
AS: The MTA is clearly under fiscal pressures everywhere, given current economic realities. Having said that, I think everybody’s cognizant of the need to get Fulton Street delivered. It’s probably the number-one priority of the business community downtown, and so delay is not an option.

CH: Those concerns came back last summer with the Deutsche Bank fire. Were people right to be concerned?
AS: Listen, getting the Deutsche Bank building down is our number one priority, it’s a focus of a tremendous amount of effort of management right here and, so, it’s priority one and gets a concurrent amount of resources form LMDC. Again, how that interplays with environmental concerns, again, we have a dozen air monitors in and around the building at 130 Liberty Street, they’re on a scaffolding right there and they were fully operational during and after the fire, and continuously operated, and the test results even through and emitted after the fire were always negative or below target and trigger levels. That’s certainly good news. There was never a moment when there was anything that our very sophisticated monitors, and it’s done by an outside company that’s sort of reviewed and overseen by the EPA, so there’s never been a moment when we’ve had a reading that’s any cause for concern.

CH: When do you expect the building will be gone entirely?
AS: By the end of the year, the end of this calendar year. We’re going to abate the building down, you know, previously it was being abated and deconstructed simultaneously. We’ve altered that, so we’re just going to abate the building, clean it all the way down to the bottom and then deconstruct it.

CH: So by the end of 2008, abatement is finished?
AS: And deconstruction.
CH: So the building won’t be there at all?
AS: That’s the plan, yes.

CH: Economic delays are endangering projects around the city. In a recession, how does the progress keep at the pace for Lower Manhattan that you wanted to keep it at?
AS: Frankly, the good news is that I really think this is an opportunity for Lower Manhattan because the pressure that’s going to be seen in development projects all around the city is one that involves financing. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to obtain financing for spec—for projects that are being built on spec without tenants. The downtown projects, because of so much attention here and focus here the past couple years, have the financing in place. For example, if you take all six towers we were talking about downtown—Goldman Sachs, obviously the money’s in place, they’re coming up. JPMC is fine for their building, Freedom Tower’s going up, Port Authority’s building that, no problem, and then the three Silverstein towers, same thing, the money’s in place between the Liberty Bonds and the insurance proceeds. So that’s really probably a great opportunity for downtown. We’ll be ahead of the cycle as there’s an economic downturn that perhaps puts pressure or causes a delay at some projects elsewhere. These buildings will all go forward, and when the inevitable recovery comes soon, we’ll be poised to take advantage of that.

CH: You are now the acting downstate CEO of the Empire State Development Corporation. What does that mean for your job responsibilities?
AS: I was, since January of 2007, serving as president and CEO of ESDC, and so I was doing a large part of that job in any event, whether it’s Atlantic Yards, whether it’s Columbia, I’m Chairman of Governor’s Island and running a portion of day-to-day operations so I was there to ask people: whether or not you associated me more with LMDC more, I was spending a substantial amount of my time on ESDC management on a day-to-day basis.

CH: What’s your assessment of where things stand on ESDC projects like the Javits Center from the time that Pat Foye was leading the agency?
AS: Listen, I’m just not going to get into that.

CH: Where do you see Javits going?
AS: Listen, Javits is really important to the economic vitality of New York. I think that broadly speaking, there’s an agreement on a way to proceed with the City, which I’m speaking to Bob Lieber about. Clearly the city and state have to be walking in lockstep on this to deliver what needs to be done, and that’s the goal, and that’s the path we’re going to take.

CH: Where do you live?
AS: I live in Brooklyn.
CH: Where in Brooklyn?
AS: Flatbush.
CH: And if Lower Manhattan improves to the state that you want it to get to, would moving into Lower Manhattan ever be something you consider?
AS: I imagine the way Lower Manhattan is improving, I’ll be priced out of the market.