Larry Silverstein
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Larry A. Silverstein is a real estate investor and operator and the head of Silverstein Properties Inc., a real estate development group.
Larry Silverstein, backed by a number of investors, signed a 99-year lease for the World Trade Center complex just seven weeks before the World Trade Center was destroyed in 2001. Silverstein already owned 7 World Trade Center which was also destroyed in the attack. Silverstein was awarded an insurance payment of more than three and a half billion dollars to settle his seven-week-old terrorist insurance policy. In addition, the Silverstein group sued the insurers liable for the World Trade Center for another three and a half billion dollars, claiming that by an obscure clause in their contract, the two planes constituted two separate terrorist attacks. Most of the insurers prevailed in a trial (Silverstein lost $2.3 billion in extra insurance money as a result) while others are yet to go to court. The issue of whether or not the plane impacts were responsible for the utter demolition of both steel-frame skyscrapers was not raised during the litigation.
Silverstein has insisted, despite saying on television that he has gotten huge amounts of mail virtually unanimous in urging that the new World Trade Center be no shorter than the old, on limiting the occupied height of new buildings at the site to 70 stories.
In March 2004, the Sears Tower in Chicago was sold to an investment group, some members of which, such as Lloyd Goldman, Joseph Cayre, and Jeffrey Feil, are known associates of Silverstein (Goldman being a large participant in the World Trade Center lease). Silverstein denies being connected with this group, which is said to be led by the Chetrit brothers of New York, but the full composition of the group remains secret.
External links
- Silverstein Properties (http://www.silversteinproperties.com/)
- Yahoo! - Silverstein Properties, Inc. Company Profile (http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/103/103844.html)
- Silverstein Loses Trade Center in Attack, After Hard-Won Lease - Sep 12 2001 (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/fido7.mo.economics/msg/8b5157951441b105?q=140+broadway&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&rnum=8)