Site redevelopment Larry Silverstein had leased the original World Trade Center from the PANYNJ in July 2001. His company
Silverstein Properties continued to pay rent on the site even after the September 11 attacks. In the months following the attacks, architects and
urban planning experts held meetings and forums to discuss ideas for rebuilding the site. The architect
Daniel Libeskind won a competition to design the master plan for the new
World Trade Center in February 2003. The master plan included five towers, a 9/11 memorial, and a transportation hub. By July 2004, two towers were planned on the southeast corner of the site: the 62-story 3 World Trade Center and the 58-story 4 World Trade Center. The PANYNJ and Silverstein ultimately reached an agreement in 2006. Silverstein Properties ceded the rights to develop 1 and
5 WTC in exchange for financing with
Liberty Bonds for
2, 3, and
4 WTC. British architect
Richard Rogers of
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners was hired to design the new 3 World Trade Center, on the eastern part of the World Trade Center site at 175 Greenwich Street, in May 2006. Additionally,
Norman Foster and
Fumihiko Maki were selected as the architects for 2 and 4 World Trade Center, respectively. The plans for 2, 3, and 4 World Trade Center were announced in September 2006. 3 World Trade Center would be a 71-story, building with diagonal bracing on its facade for structural reinforcement. The tentative plans also called for four spires, one at each corner, rising above the flat roof. As part of the project,
Cortlandt Street (which had been closed to make way for the original World Trade Center) was planned to be rebuilt between 3 and 4 WTC. The plans for Cortlandt Street affected the design of the lower stories of both 3 and 4 WTC, as one of the proposals called for an enclosed shopping atrium along the path of Cortlandt Street, connecting the two buildings. The street was eventually rebuilt as an outdoor path. The three buildings would comprise the commercial eastern portion of the new World Trade Center, contrasting with the memorial in the complex's western section. At the time, construction of 3 WTC was planned to begin in January 2008. As part of its agreement with the PANYNJ, Silverstein Properties was obliged to complete 3 and 4 WTC by the end of 2011.
Construction Initial construction and disputes In 2007, the PANYNJ started constructing the East Bathtub, a site that was to form the foundations of 3 and 4 WTC. The process involved excavating a trench around the site to a depth of , then constructing a
slurry wall around the site. The PANYNJ was supposed to give the site to Silverstein Properties at the end of 2007; the contractors would have received a $10 million bonus if they had completed the work early. The agency ultimately gave the site to Silverstein on February 17, 2008. The PANYNJ paid a $14.4 million penalty for turning over the site 48 days after the deadline. Investment bank
Merrill Lynch & Co. expressed interest in relocating its headquarters to 3 World Trade Center in mid-2008. Following this, the PANYNJ voted to extend the deadline for the building's completion to June 2012. Merrill had been the first private firm to show interest in leasing significant amounts of space at the World Trade Center, and the announcement raised the possibility that 3 WTC could be redesigned for Merrill's use. Merrill balked at Silverstein's offer, and it withdrew from the project in July 2008 after failing to secure a lease on favorable terms. Merrill's withdrawal came shortly after the PANYNJ had announced that the World Trade Center redevelopment would be delayed significantly. Meanwhile, police officials expressed concern that the building's all-glass design posed a security risk. A study published in early 2009 predicted that 3 WTC would not be fully occupied until 2037, due to the
2008 financial crisis. By May 2009, the PANYNJ was seeking to reduce the size of 2 and 3 WTC and postpone the construction of 5 WTC, citing the
Great Recession and disagreements with Silverstein. The developer had requested that the PANYNJ fund two of the towers, but the agency wanted to take control of the 3 WTC site and was willing to provide funding for only one tower. The PANYNJ wanted to build 3 WTC only to the fourth story, allowing Silverstein to construct a hotel or office building above when market conditions improved. In July 2009, Silverstein wrote a letter to the development's stakeholders, recommending that the dispute go to
arbitration. Silverstein officially requested arbitration the next month. He requested that the PANYNJ pay $2.7 billion in damages. An arbitration panel ruled in January 2010 that the agency did not owe him any damages. The panel gave Silverstein and the PANYNJ two months to reach an agreement. As part of the arbitration process, Silverstein requested a $2.6 billion tax-free bond issue for the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site. The New York state government approved the bond issue in December 2009, though the construction of 2 and 3 WTC remained on hold. In February 2010, Silverstein proposed constructing 3 WTC and delaying plans for 2 WTC, a move that was expected to save $262 million in the short term. The next month, the PANYNJ and the city and state governments of New York agreed to fund $600 million for 3 WTC's construction after Silverstein had found tenants for at least of the space. Silverstein would build the first five stories by 2013 if he were unable to finance the project and lease the office space. PANYNJ board members from New Jersey acquiesced to the deal with Silverstein, but only on the condition that the agency also fund a reconstruction of the
Bayonne Bridge. Three
PureCell fuel cells were delivered at the World Trade Center site in November 2010, providing about 30 percent of 3 WTC's power. In the meantime, the tower had been delayed indefinitely. The investment bank
UBS was considering leasing space at 3 WTC in mid-2011 but ultimately decided against it. At the time, although the complex was originally supposed to have been anchored by large financial firms, these companies were generally no longer seeking to expand their space.
Funding compromise and anchor tenant 's South Pool can be seen in the foreground. Silverstein Properties and the PANYNJ agreed in early 2012 to complete only the first seven stories of 3 WTC unless tenants could be found by the end of the year. The base had been built entirely with insurance proceeds, and the tower stories would only be built after Silverstein met the requirements. By that February, the ground floor concrete was almost done and the lower podium had reached the 5th floor; the podium was then planned to be completed in September 2012. Owen Steel's president David Zalesne announced in June 2012 that his company had been selected to provide the structural steel for the building. The next month, the concrete core had reached the 8th floor, and all concrete work had halted. Media conglomerate
Viacom and financial firm
Citigroup had both declined to relocate to 3 WTC. If Silverstein were unable to finalize a lease by the end of 2013, he would have been required to build a semi-permanent roof above the 7th story. By late 2012, advertising company
GroupM was negotiating to lease at 3 WTC, and law firm
White & Case was looking for about . Either of these deals would be large enough to qualify the project for up to $600 million in public benefits. and the company finalized its lease that December, taking . The following month, U.S. senator
Chuck Schumer obtained $340 million in federal Recovery Zone bonds to finance the project's construction. Silverstein asked the city, state, and PANYNJ in 2014 to refinance the project on terms that were more favorable to him. In exchange, he would contribute a greater share of private capital. The PANYNJ postponed a vote on whether to
guarantee $1.2 billion of construction loans in March 2014, and the vote was delayed again that April. Although PANYNJ chairman
Scott Rechler supported the subsidy, other PANYNJ board members said the guarantee was wasteful because the majority of the proposed building still did not have tenant commitments. The PANYNJ voted against guaranteeing the construction loans in May 2014, but the PANYNJ and Silverstein reached a financing agreement the next month. The large amount of unleased space made it difficult for Silverstein to sell bonds to private investors, so the building was instead mainly funded by the sale of $1.6 billion of tax-exempt bonds, the largest-ever unrated bond deal in the
municipal bond market. Other sources of funding included $600 million in insurance proceeds, $210 million in cash from the city and state governments of New York, and $55 million in cash from Silverstein Properties. Silverstein sold the municipal bonds at the end of October 2014.
Resumption of construction Following the financing agreement, the tower crane returned, and the PANYNJ and Silverstein announced that the building would be completed by 2017. Unusual for a high-rise, the building's
concrete core was built before the rest of the structure was completed. Fintech company
Fundrise sold $5 million of the building's municipal bonds to private investors in January 2015. Work above the second story had begun by the next month. That June, the architects eliminated the planned rooftop masts, reduced the building to its final height of . Nonetheless, by August 2015, the building had reached half of its final height. The construction process was complicated by the fact that water started leaking into the construction site in late 2015, delaying the opening of the adjacent
Westfield World Trade Center mall. The site was completely exposed to the outdoors, and workers were constantly spraying water onto the building's concrete to decrease dust levels, both of which caused water to seep into the building. 3 World Trade Center's core was topped out one month later on June 23, 2016. On the evening of August 11, 2016, a construction crane struck one of 3 World Trade Center's windows. There was a heavy wind gust at the time, and construction workers were securing the crane when it veered into a 12th-story glass panel, cracking it. No one was injured. On October 6, 2016, the entire building was topped out when the last steel beam was lifted and installed on top. The glass facade was completed in August 2017, at which point several retailers had signed leases for the atrium retail space. File:WTC 3-April 2014.jpg|Construction of 3 World Trade Center as of April 2014 File:Three World Trade Center New York NY 2015 06 10 09.jpg|3 World Trade Center under construction on June 10, 2015. The PATH station is visible to the right. File:3-4 World Trade Center at night 2016.JPG|The PATH Station, 3, and
4 World Trade Center at night in May 2016 File:Three World Trade Center topping out ceremony.png|Developer
Larry Silverstein and construction workers sign the last bucket of concrete during the topping-off ceremony on June 23, 2016. File:3 World Trade Jan 2017.png|3 World Trade Center under construction on January 26, 2017 File:3-4 World Trade Center 2017.jpg|3 World Trade Center under construction on May 8, 2017
Opening and early years 3 WTC's anchor tenant GroupM had expanded its space to in January 2016, and GroupM hired the architectural firm
to redesign 15 floors in the building for its nine constituent companies. The stock exchange platform
IEX leased in the building in April 2018. This was followed the next month by global consulting company
McKinsey & Company, which leased . The building officially opened on June 11, 2018. At the time, the building was 38 percent occupied.
Casper Sleep, beverage firm
Diageo, technology startup
Asana Inc., and mortgage lender
Better.com. These five leases totaled . and law firms
Kelley Drye & Warren and
Cozen O'Connor also leased space there. and Uber sought to sublease some of its space by the end of that year. Casper subleased some of its space to advertising company Index Exchange in 2021. In addition, the law firm
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer leased four stories at 3 WTC in August 2022. == Architecture ==