In A Dead Language

Memorial Cost at Ground Zero Nears $1 Billion
By CHARLES V. BAGLI and DAVID W. DUNLAP

The projected cost of building the World Trade Center memorial complex at ground zero has soared to nearly $1 billion, according to the most authoritative estimate to date.

Rebuilding officials concede that the new price tag is breathtaking — "beyond reason" in the words of one member of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation board — and it is sure to set off another battle over development at the 16-acre site, with calls to cut costs, scale back the design or even start over.

The foundation, which had planned to start construction in March, has already quietly broached the possibility with some victims' families of moving important parts of the memorial out of the twin towers' footprints to ground level.

Only two or three years ago, the problems faced by the memorial, the spiritual centerpiece of the site, would have been unimaginable. The underground complex, with its pools, waterfalls and galleries, was the product of a worldwide design competition that drew 5,201 entries and inspired tremendous public passion.

It was supposed to be immune to the controversies that had engulfed the commercial rebuilding at the site, with its completion assured by an outpouring of good will and open checkbooks. But fund-raising has lagged, with just $130 million raised from private contributions.

The new estimate, $972 million, would make this the most expensive memorial ever built in the United States. And that figure does not include the $80 million for a visitors' center paid for by New York State. It is likely to draw unfavorable comparisons to the $182 million National World War II Memorial in Washington, which opened in 2004; the $29 million Oklahoma City National Memorial, which opened in 2000; or the $7 million Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, which opened in 1982.

The original World Trade Center itself cost $1 billion in the 1970's, or about $3.7 billion in current dollars. Then again, everything at ground zero carries a big ticket, from the $478 million vehicle-screening center to the $2.2 billion PATH terminal.

The latest figure comes from a lengthy report by Bovis Lend Lease, the construction manager hired by the foundation to come up with a rigorous analysis of the projected costs based on forecasts of labor rates and market prices for steel and concrete, which have been rising rapidly in recent months.

The report includes expenses not previously enumerated, like $25 million in insurance and $22 million for museum exhibit design and construction, as well as a $22 million increase in the cost of the entry pavilion to the underground museum.

The foundation has started briefing officials at City Hall, in the office of Gov. George E. Pataki and at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the land. A person involved in meetings about the memorial provided The New York Times with a copy of a confidential foundation memorandum, dated May 2, that summarizes the Bovis findings.

Excuse me? This is nuts. We cannot provide adequate healthcare in this country and we're going to spend a billion on this? We have Katrina survivors still living in trailers and this is how we are going to apportion funds? Pardon me for asking, but how fucked up is that?

There are ways to memorialize the dead that don't take from the living and this ain't one of them. This is bone-shaking stupid.