Two years after terrorists reduced the 12-million-sq-ft World Trade Center to rubble, officials charged with the site’s $10-billion redevelopment are cautiously celebrating the end of a major bottleneck to the recovery of Ground Zero and Lower Manhattan by putting the final touches on a detailed plan for the 16-acre complex. "We’re starting to pick up steam," says John N. Lieber, director of WTC development for Silverstein Properties Inc., New York City, the parent company of the entity that, along with retailer Westfield America Inc., had signed a 99-year lease on the trade center less than two months before Sept. 11, 2001. "A lot of the complicated political and policy decisions are coming together," says Lieber, whose job was created last March by WTC redeveloper Larry Silverstein. "It’s an exciting time to get involved."

There are still open questions regarding the WTC, but the recent "big hug" between Silverstein and the state’s Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corp. over control of the architecture for the proposed 1,776-ft-tall contender for the title of "World’s Tallest Building" paved the way for progress. The July announcement that local high-rise architect David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill–Silverstein’s choice–would reign over the $1-billion Freedom Tower envisioned by LMDC’s master planner Daniel Libeskind catapulted the redevelopment from a holding pattern into forward motion.