The Pavilion

The pavilion piece of the $610 million project will be a 45,000-square-foot stainless-steel-clad structure designed by Snøhetta, a Norwegian architecture firm. It will contain an atrium, 160-seat auditorium, and rest rooms.

Perhaps its most striking feature is pair of trident-shaped steel beams that were salvaged from the Twin Towers and are slated to be installed on-site this week. “It’s great to see a place that was a hole in the city becoming something actual and tangible,” says architect Craig Dykers, a Snøhetta co-founder.

While construction of the museum and pavilion, along with the memorial, have been notably delayed—a completion date of 2009 promised was initially promised—projects of this scope often take a long time to realize, says Daniels. He points out that Washington, D.C.’s World War Two and Vietnam memorials were finished decades after the events they commemorate ended. Plus, “nobody asks now if Central Park was on-time and on-budget,” he says. “They are just happy with what was built.”

One World Trade Center

Designed by SOM’s David Childs and located in the northwest corner of the site, One World Trade Center will rise 1,776 feet (including its antenna) when it’s finished in 2013. It will be slightly taller than the original One WTC, which measured 1,727 feet with its antenna. The building was referred to as the Freedom Tower until 2009, when the Port Authority renamed it for branding reasons, according to reports.

The design calls for a symmetrical, 3.4 million-square-foot tower with eight glass façade planes shaped like isosceles triangles and a cubic base clad in prismatic glass. As of September 7, the steel framing for 36 stories of the 104-story skyscraper was complete. In October, workers expect to add windows to these levels.

After languishing for years, the project received a financial boost this year. The Durst Organization announced a $100 million equity stake in the $3.2 billion project, and Conde Nast, the magazine publisher, said it likely will lease 1 million square feet.

Towers Two, Three, Four and Five

Emerging from the southeast corner of the site, meanwhile, is Tower Four, a 64-story, 2- million-square-foot high-rise by Fumihiko Maki. The framing for six levels is complete. Starting in November, the developer expects to finish a floor a week, with completion slated for 2013.

In August, ending a two-year impasse, Silverstein and the Port Authority finalized a deal whereby the agency would provide $1 billion in public funds for Tower Four. The deal also calls for $600 million in Port Authority and other public funds for Tower Three, a 1,137-foot skyscraper designed by Richard Rogers. But the deal has strings attached: Silverstein has to raise $300 million in equity and secure tenants for 400,000 square feet of the 2.1 million-square-foot building to qualify for the money.

Tower Two, a 78-story skyscraper by Norman Foster, meanwhile, likely will have its foundations poured in 2011, according to a Silverstein spokesman. Tower Five, by Kohn Pedersen Fox, will rise on a site now occupied by the soon-to-be-demolished Deutsche Bank; however, the Port Authority, which will build Tower Five, has not released any details.

Other Projects

Two other major projects planned for the WTC site will follow, like a Santiago Calatrava-designed station for New Jersey’s PATH train, with connections to nearby subway lines. Arches for the soaring glass-covered mezzanine that will be the centerpiece of the $3.2 billion project are now being installed, with completion expected in 2014.

But less is known about a Frank Gehry-designed arts center, whose proposed site, next to One World Trade, now serves as the temporary PATH station.

In the meantime, a 2,500-square-foot visitors center—designed by Ron Vega—in a former camera shop on nearby Vesey Street is open and bustling. The center, which offers models of the buildings planned for the WTC site, has drawn 1.1 million visitors since its August 2009 debut, Daniels says. “This is a pretty good reflection of future visitors to the site,” he says. “We’re happy with it.”