At the World Trade Center site, the memorial to the people who died on Sept. 11, 2001, will not be open to the public in time for the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack, as had been previously announced.
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The $2.5 billion PATH station and transit hub nearby are not only behind schedule and over budget, but the final design is not even finished.
On the south side of the site, the demolition of the Deutsche Bank tower will not be completed until sometime next year, at least 14 months behind schedule.
For at least a year, some officials involved in the rebuilding effort have hinted that delays for any one of the 26 separate but interrelated projects on the 16 acres were compounding. But on Monday, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, issued a 34-page report listing the site’s problems, saying, “The schedule and cost for each of the public projects on the site face significant delays and cost overruns.”
The Port Authority adamantly refused to offer new schedules or cost estimates, but some officials said the delays could run up to three years. The cost overruns could extend into the billions for a project whose total cost is now more than $15 billion.
At the heart of the problem, the report said, were overly ambitious completion dates that were probably inaccurate from the day they were announced. Those dates were set at a time when former Gov. George E. Pataki, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the Port Authority wanted to convey the sense that this most politically, economically and emotionally significant of projects would be completed quickly.
The report also illuminated in great detail just why that schedule was so inaccurate: The work entails more than two dozen projects, some of them large and extremely complex, all within the confines of a dozen square blocks. Nineteen public agencies, two private developers and 101 construction contractors and subcontractors are involved.
Although Port Authority officials publicly acknowledged the daunting problems on Monday, they were also eager to convey the sense that some progress was being made on the centerpiece, the 1,776-foot-tall Freedom Tower, as well as on three other office towers, the transit hub and the foundations for the memorial.
“The World Trade Center site is being rebuilt, will continue to be rebuilt, and it will be completed,” Christopher O. Ward, executive director of the Port Authority, said on Monday. “The question surrounding the World Trade Center rebuilding is not if all of the projects will be built, rather when and for how much.”
At the same time, Mr. Ward conceded that “there will clearly be some triage,” meaning some projects at ground zero may have to be delayed while others are accelerated. The PATH station designed by Santiago Calatrava will have to be revised, he said. Public officials will also have to decide how to keep the station for the No. 1 subway line at the site from impeding construction that is only inches away.
At a news conference on Monday, Gov. David A. Paterson, who had asked the Port Authority for the report on the overall rebuilding effort, painted a grim picture. He said past estimates and schedules had been so unrealistic, and so much essential information remained unknown, that even now, the authority would not set a completion date.
Instead, Mr. Paterson said, he had ordered that all stakeholders in the effort meet to find a way to centralize decision-making about the site. The goal, he said, was to come up with a more realistic schedule and budgets by Sept. 30.
“Here’s what we’re not going to do,” Mr. Paterson said. “We’re not going to give any phony dates or timetables at this point and then follow it up with phony ribbon-cuttings and encouraging words and no follow-up.”
Mr. Paterson also said there would be no casting of blame for the rebuilding delays.
“I don’t know that it would be important to assess that it was the fault of people or that they were irresponsible,” he said. “I think, all in all, everyone was trying to do the right thing.”
Still, the reference to phony ribbon-cuttings and the like amounted to a rebuke of Mr. Pataki, who was in office in 2001 and viewed the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan as a central element of his 12-year legacy.
“For years, unrealistic deadlines were set,” said Julie Menin, chairwoman of Community Board 1, whose district includes the site. “There seemed to be more interest in having press conferences declaring how Lower Manhattan would be rebuilt better than ever, than in establishing realistic deadlines and budgets. Now we’re in a situation where projects could be stalled, or are years away from being completed.”
Ms. Menin said tension between the Pataki and Bloomberg administrations also contributed to the delays. “There were times when literally the city and state each separately would call me to say they did not want to sit at the same table when presenting at a community board meeting,” she said.
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