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| Larry Silverstein, who put down 15 million for a 99-year lease. And negotiates a very unusual insurance policy. The policy absolved Silverstein of paying anything more on his lease in the event of a terrorist attack. But, it left Larry with ownership of the property for the balance of his lease. So instead of paying 3.2 billion, he paid 15 and when the insurance paid off for the destruction of the complex, he took 7 billion out of the deal. And, he still gets to charge rental for whatever gets built on that land, without having to make any more lease payments himself for 98 years. |
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| On July 24, 2001, the Port Authority entered into net leases with respect to One, Two, Four and Five World Trade Center with single purpose entities established by Silverstein Properties, Inc., and with respect to the retail components of the World Trade Center, with a single purpose entity established by Westfield America, Inc. The terms of the 99-year net leases generally required the net lessees to pay in the aggregate $616 million upon commencement of the net leases, base rent starting at $102 million annually, a graduating percentage of gross revenues, and additional base rental payments to the extent cash flow is available for the provision of certain expenses and costs. The leases do not provide for rent abatement before or during the restoration period. The terms of the net leases establish both an obligation and concomitant right for the net lessees, at their sole cost and expense, to restore the leased premises following a casualty whether or not the damage is covered by insurance proceeds in accordance, and to the extent feasible, prudent and commercially reasonable, with the plans and specifications as they existed before the casualty or as otherwise agreed to with the Port Authority, and to remove all debris resulting from the damage or destruction. The net lessees obtained property damage and business interruption insurance under a single policy covering all of the net leased properties with a combined single limit of approximately $3.5 billion per occurrence. |
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| ''I have a leasehold obligation requiring me to pay the Port Authority $120 million a year in rent and an obligation to replace the 10 million square feet at the trade center,'' he said in an interview last Thursday. ''I have an insurance policy. All of this puts me in a position to rebuild. We're going to move forward and do something we can all be proud of.'' |
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| The policy DID cover terrorist attack. Typically the company financing the mortgage on properties such as this will require certain types of insurance coverage, just as a home or car owner who is leasing or making payments on their property will have to carry a specific insurance policy on same. |
| QUOTE (Elder4Truth @ Sep 7 2007, 07:37 PM) |
| 'Besides the enormity of the possible insurance pay outs, independent 9/11 investigators have also called attention to the peculiar timing and control of ownership made by Silverstein only months before the WTC attacks. 'The WTC came under the control of a private ownership of Silverstein for the first time on April 26, 2001, having been built and managed by the New York and New Jersey Port Authority as a public resource since its creation in 1972. "Silverstein then acquired a handsome insurance policy for the complex, including a clause that would prove extremely valuable in the not too distant future. The clause specifically read that "in the event of a terrorist attack, the partnership could collect the insured value of the property, and be released from their obligations under the 99-year lease." [source: http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20050510.htm] |
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| Mr. Silversten, who made a down-payment of $124 million on this $3.2 billion complex, promptly insured it for $7 Billion. Not only that, he covered the complex against 'terrorist attacks'. Following the attacks, Silverstein filed TWO insurance claims for the maximum amount of the policy ($7B), based on the two -- in Silverstein's view -- separate attacks. The insurance company, Swiss Re, paid Mr. Silverstein $4.6 Billion -- a princely return on a relatively paltry investment of $124 million. There's more. You see, the World Trade Towers were not the real estate plum we are led to believe. From an economic standpoint, the trade center -- subsidized since its inception by the NY Port Authority -- has never functioned, nor was it intended to function, unprotected in the rough-and-tumble real estate marketplace. How could Silverstein Group have been ignorant of this? The towers required some $200 million in renovations and improvements, most of which related to removal and replacement of building materials declared to be health hazards in the years since the towers were built. It was well-known by the city of New York that the WTC was an asbestos bombshell. For years, the Port Authority treated the building like an aging dinosaur, attempting on several occasions to get permits to demolish the building for liability reasons, but being turned down due the known asbestos problem. Further, it was well-known the only reason the building was still standing until 9/11 was because it was too costly to disassemble the twin towers floor by floor since the Port Authority was prohibited legally from demolishing the buildings. The projected cost to disassemble the towers: $15 Billion. Just the scaffolding for the operation was estimated at $2.4 Billion! In other words, the Twin Towers were condemned structures. How convenient that an unexpected 'terrorist' attack demolished the buildings completely. |
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| 12:00 AM CST on Sunday, January 28, 2007 From Wire Reports Amy Westfeld, Associated Press NEW YORK – Deborah Reeve got a cold, a cough and a fever that wouldn't go away. It was more than two years after she had left recovery efforts at Ground Zero. A month later, the nonsmoker was diagnosed with mesothelioma, an asbestos-related cancer. By last spring, the 41-year-old mother of two was dead. "My wife got killed on September 11, and she didn't die until March 15, 2006," said her husband, David, a paramedic like his wife who also spent months breathing in toxic dust at the World Trade Center site after the 2001 attacks. "She got killed and didn't know After five years, doctors have definitively established a link between work at Ground Zero and chronic respiratory illness; a study published last fall by the largest monitoring program for post-9/11 workers found that nearly 70 percent were likely to have lifelong breathing problems. |
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| "Silverstein then acquired a handsome insurance policy for the complex, including a clause that would prove extremely valuable in the not too distant future. The clause specifically read that "in the event of a terrorist attack, the partnership could collect the insured value of the property, and be released from their obligations under the 99-year lease." |