NEW YORK CITY-Construction on the steel skeleton of 1 World Trade Center has reached the halfway mark—creating enough of a presence at 52 stories to stand out on the Lower Manhattan skyline—as another Ground Zero structure is near the end of its progress in the opposite direction. The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. is close to completing the deconstruction of 130 Liberty St., the former Deutsche Bank building at the south end of the site that was heavily damaged on 9/11.

A spokesman for LMDC tells GlobeSt.com the dismantling of the contaminated 40-story office tower, now down to two stories above street level, is expected to be done later this month. Following that, LMDC will turn over the site to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the bistate agency that is rebuilding at Ground Zero. That’s due to take place sometime in February, the spokesman says, declining to be more specific.

Although nearly a decade has passed since the collapse of the twin towers left a 15-story gash in 130 Liberty, the deconstruction process has been under way only since 2005, when LMDC paid $90 million to acquire the tower so it could be cleaned and torn down. Following an August 2007 blaze in which two New York City firefighters lost their lives, the city issued a stop-work order at the site.

The order was lifted the following April. Interior abatement on 130 Liberty was completed in September 2009 and deconstruction resumed two months later, according to the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center. As 2010 progressed, the black-shrouded tower gradually disappeared from the skyline.

In an update to Manhattan’s Community Board 1 in December, LMDC said that once 130 Liberty’s superstructure is removed, the foundation walls will remain to provide support for surrounding substructures, including the tunnel for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s No. 1 subway line. After the Port Authority takes over the 130 Liberty site, its construction crews will extend South Bathtub excavation eastward for construction of the WTC Vehicle Security Center entry. The Port Authority refers to the 130 Liberty locale as the Tower 5 Site because a proposed fifth WTC tower would go there, joining 1 WTC and the three skyscrapers under development by Silverstein Properties Inc.

Once the site belongs to the Port, a spokesman for the authority tells GlobeSt.com, “Our highest and most immediate priority is to make sure the Vehicle Security Center is delivered in time for the commercial development throughout the World Trade Center site.” The spokesman adds that this order of priorities makes the Tower 5 Site “critical, because it will serve as the key staging area for construction and access of the Vehicle Security Center.”

Long term, what gets built where 130 Liberty once stood is an open question. “Once the Vehicle Security Center is constructed and the Tower 5 Site is no longer necessary for construction staging and access, it will be available for development,” the Port spokesman says. “As we have said in the past, whether it is office, retail, hotel, residential or some mix of those uses, that development should be market driven to ensure its highest and best use. We will be tracking this closely as the market improves.”