Nevertheless, C&W president Bruce E. Mosler, commenting onthe prospect of any commercial center approaching the stature thatDowntown has always enjoyed, leaves no doubt of the firm'scommitment and confidence in the future of Lower Manhattan."Downtown remains one the largest and most vibrant office marketsin the country--post September 11--second only to midtown andChicago in size. I don't believe that any other regionalmarketplaces are competitive."

Yet, if there are any upstarts looking to get a leg up onDowntown, they won't be found among neighbors such as New Jersey,Connecticut or even our own suburban enclaves. While those areashave absorbed some former WTC tenants, markets such as Chicago,Washington DC, San Francisco, Boston and Houston should not beignored as potential competition, the study says. While Wall Streetis unlikely ever to meet its match in the financial arena, and inthe end, most New York firms are here because they want to be here,C&W stresses that creative land-use solutions and qualitydevelopment will be crucial factors in maintaining Downtown'sstatus as the leading commercial office center.

The 12.5 million sf of class A office space destroyed when theWorld Trade Center towers fell is roughly equivalent to that of theentire central business districts of Atlanta or Miami, the studysays. There were 39 tenants in the towers occupying more than50,000 sf and 26 of those tenants had spaces of 100,000 sf ormore.