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Panel releases principles for redeveloping Trade Center Site

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The quasi-government agency appointed to oversee the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan has released a detailed and ambitious list of principles to guide rebuilding on the World Trade Center site and the surrounding area.

The proposed "blueprint for renewal" of the neighborhood where the Twin Towers were brought down in the September 11 terrorist attack was released Tuesday at the monthly meeting of the board of directors of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.

The blueprint goes well beyond simply rebuilding office space to replace the towers and other collapsed buildings. It also covers a memorial, transportation improvements, new office space, park land and new cultural facilities.

It comes after weeks of soliciting input from business and community leaders, neighborhood residents, and families of the victims.

"In the end the plan has to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle," said LMDC Chairman John Whitehead.

The plan envisions redeveloping the area where more than a hundred thousand jobs were lost "not only with a revived financial services/Wall Street economy, but with new centers of economic activity."

It calls for the following:

-- A permanent memorial for the nearly 3,000 people killed at Ground Zero as well as a "museum of freedom and remembrance" that would be as inviting as other area tourist destinations, such as Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, and the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. The plan calls for "an international design process" for the memorial.

-- Integrating mass transit service with the rest of the city, including more connections to train lines that carry commuters from city suburbs to Penn Station in midtown Manhattan and a new bus/truck terminal to accommodate an anticipated future surge in area visitors.

-- Promoting commercial businesses, such as a new center for biotech companies, and creating "a galleria of retail offerings" to replace the many stores lost in the underground World Trade Center mall.

-- Expanding cultural and civic institutions, including a new performing arts center with a home for the City Opera -- the better-known Metropolitan Opera would remain at Lincoln Center -- and going forward with pre-existing plans to build a downtown Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Gehry, along the waterfront.

-- Creating more park space, including a continuous waterfront park "wrapping Lower Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge to battery Park City."

-- Restoring the Manhattan street grid and reintegrating the site with the neighborhood.

-- Expanding the residential population.

"There are going to be more good things to do than there are monies in the end," said LMDC President Lou Tomson.

Already the LMDC has allocated $302 million of the $2 billion appropriated to the city by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Most of that money has been earmarked for housing, such as grants up to $12,000 during two years to subsidize rent or mortgage payments for new residents to the neighborhood.

"We are very involved in the process of finding out what's do-able," said Alexander Garvin, the LMDC's vice president for planning and design, who presented the guidelines.

Garvin disagreed with a characterization of the blueprint as a "wish list," saying that many of the ideas have been studied for years. He said decisions on mass transit and a permanent memorial needed to be made first, because "they will determine everything else."

"We're optimistic the need for office space will increase," Whitehead said, adding, however, that even the first new office building on the drawing board won't be completed before 2005.

"We now beginning to plan buildings that will be available for occupancy in 2005, 6, 7, 8, 9," he said.