Silverstein Properties Marks 9/11 Milestone With Long-Awaited 2 World Trade Center Finally Moving Forward

Silverstein Properties Marks 9/11 Milestone With Long-Awaited 2 World Trade Center Finally Moving Forward

Twenty-five years after the 2001 attacks destroyed the World Trade Center, the family behind its rebuilding is reaching what may be the most ambitious chapter of the effort yet. Earlier this year, Silverstein Properties confirmed that 2 World Trade Center — a roughly 2 million-square-foot tower long viewed by many in the industry as uncertain — secured American Express as its anchor tenant and broke ground over the summer.

The development caps a decades-long rebuilding saga led by Larry Silverstein, who held the lease on the World Trade Center at the time of the attacks and vowed in the days that followed that New York would rebuild. His role in the years-long process of clearing wreckage, navigating disputes among public and private agencies, and revising site plans is chronicled in his book The Rising.

Leadership of the firm passed to Lisa Silverstein, who became CEO in 2023. In a recent interview with Commercial Observer, she described negotiations with American Express as roughly five years in the making and noted the complexity of the arrangement, which involved a tri-party deal with the Port Authority. She succeeded a father whose persistence became, for many observers, a symbol of the city’s broader resilience after 9/11.

The 2 World Trade Center groundbreaking lands at a complicated moment for New York’s office market. Office landlords continue to weigh hybrid-work-era demand against a flight toward high-end, amenity-rich buildings — a segment where premier towers have generally outperformed older stock. Peers in the publicly traded office sector reflect that dynamic; BXP, Inc. (BXP), the largest publicly traded developer and manager of premier workplaces in the U.S., with concentrations in New York and five other gateway markets, traded recently at $64.70, up 1.54% on the day, for a market capitalization of roughly $12.2 billion. Like Silverstein’s project, large-scale office bets across the city increasingly hinge on securing anchor tenants before construction moves ahead.

For Silverstein Properties, the American Express commitment provides precisely that: a pre-leasing foundation for one of the largest office projects in Manhattan, and a milestone that few in the industry anticipated when 2 World Trade Center’s design and financing remained unresolved for years after the original master plan was set.

What to watch

• Further leasing announcements at 2 World Trade Center following the American Express anchor deal
• Construction milestones as the tower moves from groundbreaking toward vertical rise
• Additional commentary from Lisa Silverstein on the firm’s pipeline as CEO
• Broader Manhattan office absorption and pre-leasing trends as a backdrop for speculative development

Source: original release