Deutsche Bank Deconstruction Delays

Deutsche Bank by larryosan on Flickr.

The latest news from the Deutsche Bank building in Lower Manhttan is–guess what–the various stakeholders can’t get their act together to even restart the deconstruction. According to Crain’s, deconstruction was planned to restart in the beginning in November, but now the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation will not commit to a new timeline for the work. LMDC chairman said that the “situation was “complicated” and “things took a little more time.”

The tragic fire that ripped through part of the building in August took the lives of two firefighters and brought to light the dangerous and incomprehensible working conditions maintained by the the company overseeing the demoliton. It also brought to light that the contractor leading the demolition, the John Galt Corporation of the Bronx, was a front for a bunch of smaller seemingly shady companies that had no experience in deconstructing a building the size of the Deutshce Bank building at 130 Liberty Street. The New York Times reported that:

Galt does not seem to have done much of anything since it was incorporated in 1983. Public and private records give no indication of how many employees it has, what its volume of business is or who its clients are. There are almost no accounts of any projects it has undertaken on any scale, apart from 130 Liberty Street. Court records are largely silent. Some leading construction executives in the city say they have never even heard of it.

Galt was released from the demolition contract after the fire, but it seems that the various City and State agencies and Bovis Lend Leasing aren’t doing much of a better job in getting the building down. If the delays continue, it could jeopardize the plan for JP Morgan Chase to construct a new headquarters building at the location as well as larger plans for the World Trade Center redevelopment site.