Ground Zero, New York City
© AFP/File Emmanuel Dunand NEW YORK (AFP) - The schedule and cost of the ambitious project, including a landmark Liberty Tower, other ultramodern skyscrapers and a museum, "face significant delays and cost overruns," said Chris Ward, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site land.
"While significant progress has been made, the schedule and cost estimates of the rebuilding effort that have been communicated to the public are not realistic," he added in a briefing about the setbacks.
A new target completion date was not released, Ward said, as setting a fresh forecast before key issues were resolved "would only create a new set of commitments and expectations that are unrealistic."
Earlier Monday The Wall Street Journal reported the project will be delayed from one to three years and run three billion dollars over its 15-billion-dollar budget.
"Anyone giving you dates and budgets today would have to have a crystal ball," Port Authority spokesman Stephen Sigmund told the paper, calling its figures overly pessimistic.
The delays mean the so-called "ground zero" project will not be completed by 2011, the symbolic date of the 10th anniversary of the terror strikes on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania claimed by Al-Qaeda.
Construction continues at the World Trade Center site in New York City.
© AFP/Getty Images/File Stephen CherninWard pointed to 15 "fundamental issues" critical to the project and its construction which had yet to be resolved, and said there needed to be a "more efficient, centralized decision-making structure" to make final decisions on the project.
Officials said work on the site involves 19 state agencies, 101 different construction companies or subcontractors, and 33 different designers, architects and builders.
New York Governor David Paterson said he wanted to focus less on what has gone wrong in the process and more on providing an adequate memorial to honor those who died in the attacks.
"I am not interested in assigning blame. Instead, I am interested in fixing the problem so we can move forward," Paterson said.
"I believe that the victims' families deserve a memorial that is equal to the sacrifice and heroism displayed on that day and I believe that the City of New York deserves a reinvigorated site that secures our position as the economic capital of the world."
The developer of the World Trade Center site has dismissed suggestions that people would be scared to occupy the skyscrapers that will replace the fallen twin towers.
Envisaged as a demonstration of New York's unity and resilience, the reconstruction of the site where the trade center's twin towers were destroyed on September 11, 2001, became a byword for discord and disorder.
After a multitude of delays caused by the clash of multiple vested interests, construction of the design's centerpiece skyscraper -- the 1,776 foot (541-meter) Freedom Tower -- finally began in April 2006.
As well as the Freedom Tower, which will contain 241,548 square meters (2.6 million square feet) of office space, Silverstein Properties will build three other high-rise buildings at the site with a combined office space of 575,999 square meters (6.2 million square feet).
Some real estate experts have predicted the space will be hard to fill, with memories of the 9/11 attack making too many people reluctant to work in skyscrapers on the same site.
©AFP