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LMDC in trying to make the cost of the WTC Memorial more palatable has revealed that architecture and engineering fees for the memorial and museum are going to exceed 25 percent of the cost.

The New York Times in publicizing this did not flag the costs as excessive rather it headlined the article Ground Zero Memorial Cost Estimated at $490 Million.

That was not really major news since the costs for the memorial and museum have always been estimated to cost around $500 million. LMDC in making the announcement was trying to downplay reports of $800 million cost. But if the Freedom Center (now the Visitor Center) and Performing Arts are also factored in the costs would brush between $750 and $800 million.

The big scandal in all that of course was that LMDC overreached by trying to force the World Trade Center Foundation to raise money not only for the memorial but also for a Peforming Arts and Freedom/Cultural Centers.

Anyway back to the issue of fees.

The cost of the memorial itself is $330 million — $240 million to build it and $90 million for the architectural, engineering and management fees. That amounts to 27.3 percent in fees on the memorial.

The cost of the museum is $160 million — $120 million to build and $40 million for the architectural, engineering and management fees. That amounts to 25.0 percent in fees on the memorial.

A quick Google check for customary fees revealed that the customary architectural and engineering fees as a percentage go down as the project gets more expensive. By the standard posted at maggertengineers.com the worst case scenario is 16 percent and should have been around 8.3 percent for such a large project.

Granted Ground Zero has had more than its share of design problems. But, this almost smacks that it was certain parties interest to keep the turmoil going at Ground Zero and making sure that the proper course that should have been obvious from the start was never pursued (a simple monument in a park setting).

The public through federal tax dollars administered by LMDC is going to finance $300 million of this. The public is being asked to pony up the rest. It’s not very inspiring.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005 at 5:23 am and is filed under Cost, LMDC, News, Profiteering, WTC Memorial Foundation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.