Freedom Tower finally gets the OK

New York governor Eliot Spitzer, has given his backing to the under-construction US $2.4 billion Freedom Tower, according to Bloomberg.

Last month, Spitzer ordered a review of the 541m skyscraper, which will form the heart of the rebuilt World Trade Centre. He questioned the tower's economic viability, describing the project as a ‘white elephant' last year.

Spitzer said he has set aside past reservations because of the growing vitality of lower Manhattan's real estate market and the need for the city to remain a world finance capital. He said there was a need to move forward with long-delayed building at ground zero.

The governor's approval allowed the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the governmental agency that owns the site and which is responsible for building the tower, to sign contracts worth millions of dollars with concrete, plumbing and electrical suppliers.

Spitzer said that the tower could eventually be sold or leased to a private developer. The Port Authority has received inquiries from private investors interested in buying the building and taking over construction.

No design changes are foreseen for Freedom Tower, which is scheduled for completion in 2011, despite critics' complaints that the tower's height makes it too much of a terrorist target and that a 57m high bomb-resistant concrete base makes the building look too forbidding.

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