NEW YORK - THE new World Trade Center at the site of the complex destroyed in the 9/11 attacks on New York is set to shrink from an ambitious five skyscrapers to just two, a report said on Monday.
Wrangling between the owners and developers, coupled with the recession, has already sunk hopes for a quick rebirth at Ground Zero.
The New York Daily News quoted sources saying that even when the new center does rise, it will consist of only two towers and two 'stumps' of four or five floors.
Plans for a fifth building have been all but abandoned, the report said.
Total office space would amount to about five million square feet, half of the projected area in the original 2003 plan, where the five gleaming skyscrapers were meant to stand around Ground Zero.
Last month, industry reports quoted by the Daily News and other New York media said that there would be full occupancy only in 2037 - 36 years after the 9/11 attacks.
Hijacked airliners slammed into the World Trade Center on Sept 11, 2001, destroying the Twin Towers and killing nearly 3,000 people. -- AFP
