Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2008

Abstract

I will be very brief because I am a peripheral participant in this meeting. The company with which I am connected, Brookfield, owns property near the site. We were the third highest bidder to take over the World Trade Center in a deal that was completed in 2001. If our bid had been slightly higher and we had won the contract, then my experience would have been different. However, as it stands, I am peripheral participant. My primary connection is with Alex Garvin, my college classmate and friend for almost fifty years, and Meredith Kane, one of my favorite students. I have a number of favorite students, but she is on that list.

Brookfield, a large Canadian company, owns One Liberty Plaza, a building next door to the World Trade Center site. The law firm of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton has its office in that building.However, Brookfield also owns the four World Financial Center buildings, which were designed by Cesar Pelli and are representative of the financial center buildings that are constructed today. At the time the World Trade Center was attacked, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, and the Wall Street Journal were in those buildings. This is Wall Street property; therefore, we bid to become the holder of the ninety-nine year interest in the World Trade Center. However, Vornado and Mr. Silverstein bid more. As a result, we had been sitting there on the edge. Then the events of September 11th occurred resulting in substantial damage to our buildings as well as to the World Trade Center.

Disciplines

Law | Property Law and Real Estate

Comments

Reprinted with permission from Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law, a product of the students of the University of Tennessee College of Law in association with The Clayton Center for Entrepreneurial Law.

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