Governor George E. Pataki today released an economic analysis of the rebuilding of the World Trade Center which promises to create thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic activity each year. When the World Trade Center site is fully operational in 2015, it will generate approximately 90,000 full-time jobs statewide. 
 
Speaking at an Association for a Better New York/Downtown Lower Manhattan Association luncheon at the Ritz Carlton, Governor Pataki also announced that the construction of the World Trade Center site will sustain an average of 8,000 full-time jobs each year until 2015 in New York City alone. The construction will generate up to 11,000 jobs per year and up to $19 billion in cumulative economic activity throughout the New York/New Jersey region.
 
"The World Trade Center site will directly result in tens-of-thousands of new full-time jobs-- construction jobs, administrative jobs, supply jobs, engineers, architects and other professionals," said Governor Pataki. "The site will also have additional direct and indirect effects that span well-beyond the site--statewide and to the New York/New Jersey area. The new business and cultural facilities will result in millions of visitors whose spending will also fuel the growth of the regional economy. What better commemoration of all that was lost in the horrific attacks then to create a vibrant and renewed Lower Manhattan."
 
"This report reaffirms that the future World Trade Center will not only commemorate all of those lost on September 11^th and February 26^th 1993, restore the New York's skyline, create a new cultural hub and open spaces, but it will also serve as an economic driver for New York City, the state and the regional economy," said Kevin M. Rampe, President of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. "Lower Manhattan will emerge from the attacks not as it was, but even better than before. The World Trade Center site will generate billions of dollars and maintain Lower Manhattan's status as the third-largest central business district in the nation."
 
After construction is finished in 2015, ongoing operations of the businesses and institutions at the site and spending by visitors will increase New York State's economic output by $16 billion annually, resulting in approximately 90,000 full-time jobs. The construction activity alone through 2015 will generate $261-$287 million in cumulative state tax revenues and $149-$184 million in city tax revenues. The ongoing operations on the site and spending by visitors after 2015 will generate $425 million in annual city tax revenue and $460 in state tax revenue. 
            
"Hundreds of millions of dollars in additional New York State and New York City tax revenues means more money for schools, more money for bridges and roads, more money for public safety, and healthcare and human services," Governor Pataki said. "This analysis reconfirms that the World Trade Center site, in the financial capital of the world, will not only revitalize Lower Manhattan, but its benefits will be widespread--an economic catalyst for the city, the state and the New York/New Jersey Metropolitan Region." 
 
The analysis in the Economic Impact Report, prepared by Appleseed, details the direct impact of spending on site construction through 2009, when the first new office building on the site will be completed and occupied. The report also factors in the indirect and induced impacts of construction spending - the "multiplier effect." Additionally, the report details the direct, indirect and induced impact of construction at the site between 2010 and 2015 - the date when the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation expects construction to be completed. 
 
The report also analyzes the direct, indirect and induced impacts generated by the ongoing operations of businesses and institutions located at the site, and of spending by visitors. It further calculates the impact of both construction and ongoing operations on city and state tax revenues.
 
The redevelopment of the World Trade Center site will also have implications for the local economy that are not addressed in the report. For example:
 

• By helping to reassert Lower Manhattan's role as a major center of commerce, redevelopment of the World Trade Center site could over time encourage further investment in commercial development at other sites in the area.
• The new PATH terminal will be able to accommodate substantial growth in the number of employees commuting to Lower Manhattan from New Jersey.
• The development of new public spaces, cultural activities, retail choices and employment opportunities will make Lower Manhattan a more attractive place to live; it will thus encourage further investment in residential development in the area, and the continued revitalization of Lower Manhattan as a vibrant, twenty-four-hour live-work community.
• Major investments on Fulton Street and at South Ferry, Air Rail links to JFK Airport and Newark Liberty airports, and direct connections to the LIRR and expansion of ferry service, will all assist in making Lower Manhattan a twenty-first century central business district.

Over the next twenty years, these broader effects will prove to be as important to the economy of New York City and the metropolitan area as the more directly-traceable impacts analyzed in this report. These effects are not easy to quantify at this stage of the redevelopment process. Therefore the direct, indirect and induced impacts presented in the report are a relatively conservative definition of the ultimate impact of redeveloping the World Trade Center site.