American Express Wants All of 2 World Trade

"Two World Trade Center, one of the final pieces of the ground-zero rebuild, is finally happening. We've seen plan after plan for it since the aughts, from Norman Foster and Bjarke Ingels and then Foster again, and the latest iteration of his latest one, first shown several years ago, now has a tenant and a completion date. American Express announced this morning that it will move out of its longtime home at 200 Vesey Street, just across West Street, and take the whole building, all 2 million square feet of it."

"Tower 2 will fill the remaining gap in the phalanx of structures surrounding the memorial pools on the site of the original trade center, though it will not quite finish the complex. The 2 WTC site - owned, like the rest of the land, by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey - is now occupied by a placeholder structure of corrugated steel that contains mechanicals for the future building, one covered with murals that are ebullient if out of character with the area's corporate aesthetic."

"Although that is still true for many workers, it's now clear that fresh office space will sell just fine in the foreseeable future; it's the older buildings that are begging for tenants. So up it will go, 55 stories and 1,200-plus feet garlanded in greenery on the terraces, and woe to the 1980s pyramid-roofed behemoth over at Brookfield Place that Amex is vacating, which is likely to sit unoccupied for awhile."

Two World Trade Center, the final major component of the World Trade Center reconstruction, has secured its anchor tenant: American Express will relocate its entire operations from 200 Vesey Street to occupy the building's complete 2 million square feet. Norman Foster's design for the 55-story, 1,200-plus-foot tower features terraces adorned with greenery. The building will complete the phalanx of structures surrounding the memorial pools, though 5 World Trade remains unbuilt after JPMorgan Chase decided against relocating there. The site currently holds a temporary corrugated steel structure housing mechanicals. Despite earlier concerns about commercial office viability in a post-pandemic market, new office space continues to attract tenants while older buildings struggle for occupancy. Completion is targeted for 2031.

Read at Curbed