World Trade Center Site Transportation & Infrastructure Master Plan

New York, NY

Amidst the highly contested and emotionally charged process of rebuilding the site of the World Trade Center, EE&K began work in September 2002 for Port Authority of New York & New Jersey on a master plan for the site with particular focus on the public realm. Beginning with the Port’s primary mission of providing transportation facilities of the highest quality and efficiency, the firm prepared a framework for redevelopment that builds off of the Port’s plan for a new Downtown Terminal and Concourse that will link PATH trains with downtown subway lines and other modes of transit. A series of principles were developed to shape the interface between transportation spaces, public spaces (including new streets), a Memorial District, and new commercial development.

In preparing the Draft Master Plan, EE&K produced a series of development scenarios which achieve the ambitious programmatic requirements for the site – including 10 million square feet office space – while creating a quality public environment that is seamlessly integrated with new transportation systems. Special attention was paid to achieving a number of “finished” places in the near-term which can convey the ultimate vision for the new development.

New York City, and Lower Manhattan especially, has always been a work in progress and will remain so far beyond the specific project of redeveloping the World Trade Center site. The plan provides a strategic, incremental approach to rebuilding that engages with this process of city-building. It is evolutionary, not revolutionary, offering a framework that will let the city continue to grow, adapt, and breathe its own life into the spaces of Lower Manhattan. The work on the World Trade Center Site adhered to the firm’s four key principles: 1) integrate with and enhance what exists; 2) learn from New York precedents; 3) emphasize the public environment; and 4) focus on the first 3-5 years.