NEW YORK CITY-The pending relocation of Conde Nast into onemillion square feet at 1 World Trade Center has come to symbolizethe positive light in which the Ground Zero mega-project is nowseen after long being derided as a white elephant. “It’s unusualfor a deal like this to be so publicly discussed,” especially whenit hasn’t been finalized, comments Tara Stacom, vice chairman atCushman & Wakefield and head of the leasing team for the2.6-million-square-foot skyscraper since 2007. Yet Stacom tellsGlobeSt.com that neither the Conde deal nor any other single factorhas represented the pivot point.

In Stacom’s view, the momentum has been building at least sinceChris Ward came on board in 2008 as executive director of the PortAuthority of New York and New Jersey, the bistate agencyresponsible for rebuilding at Ground Zero. “He really began toplace priorities on what had to happen and masterminded a verycomplex engineering nightmare, breaking it down into someachievable goals,” she says. Chief among those were “the completionof 1 World within a realistic timeline and the completion of thememorial” in time for the 10th anniversary of 9/11 nextSeptember.

Since then, other milestones have been achieved: the signing ofBeijing Vantone, the first non-government tenant at the 1,776-foottower; and the resolution of an impasse between the Port andSilverstein Properties Inc. over the timeline and funding forcommercial construction at the site. More recent was therealization that 1 WTC would benefit from a developing partner, aselection process that ultimately resulted in the DurstOrganization taking a $100-million equity stake.