WTC DEVELOPMENT MAY IMPINGE ON VERIZON EQUIPMENT VAULT

Verizon Communications filed suit in the appellate division of the New York State Supreme Court last week against the redevelopers of 7 World Trade Center — the 43-story building that collapsed into the carrier's 140 West Street central office after the Sept. 11 attacks last year — because their restoration plans allegedly would compromise a strategically important facilities vault.

Verizon believes the issues can be resolved quickly and amicably without delaying the project, but it filed suit in part because of timing issues.

According to court documents, Empire State Development Corp. is planning a taller building on a smaller footprint because it wants to “preserve the possibility” of reopening Greenwich Street, which had run through the 7 WTC site prior to its construction. However, Empire State also extended the footprint for the new building 26 feet to the south at the request of the building's owner and Consolidated Edison, which previously owned two electrical substations in the basement of the original 7 WTC. This placed the building on top of Verizon's vault.

In the suit, Verizon is asking the court to force Empire State to guarantee access to the vault and to compensate Verizon for engineering and construction costs associated with its partial relocation. More important, the suit is designed to force Empire State to address the logistical and safety issues, said Michael Daigle, Verizon's vice president of network planning for Manhattan. A deadline for appeals concerning land condemnation for the project forced Verizon's hand, he added.

The vault contains about 180,000 telephone lines, of which about 80,000 are currently active. The lines connect to 140 West Street via 168 ducts, 99 of which contain active copper and fiber optic cables. Because access to the vault and ducts would be blocked by the new building, Verizon faced the prospect of having to abandon the vault and move its contents elsewhere, which would have taken a minimum of two years, perhaps as long as three years, and cost about $10 million.

The carrier made a counter-proposal that would shift the vault about nine feet to the south and cut Verizon's costs in half, according to Daigle. “Part of the vault will still be there,” he said. “What was the south section will become the new north section.”

Empire State accepted the alternate proposal, but a sticking point developed over how the vault-shift plans would be integrated in the overall redevelopment plans. Empire State wanted Verizon to develop its plans independently and then communicate with its engineers at a later date on how to handle the integration.

“That's not good enough,” Daigle said. “The vault will become part of the new building's foundation. It needs to be included in the overall design.”

Verizon also is concerned about the safety of its approximately 2000 employees at 140 West Street. Those workers access the building via its main entrance on Washington Street, which will become a functioning street after the complex is redeveloped. But Washington Street will be too narrow to safely accommodate pedestrian and truck traffic, Verizon said, which is expected to increase because the plans for the new 7 WTC call for loading docks to be relocated to Washington Street.

Empire State did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment for this story.