Silverstein back in buying business with $400m deal.

Partnering with California Pension fund CalSTRS, with whom he already co-owns 120 Broadway, Larry Silverstein purchased 575 Lexington Avenue last week for $400 million from the Koeppel family.

Silverstein will manage the 600,000 s/f building and have an equity stake, according to the New York Post, which first reported the sale.

The Ground Zero developer hinted the purchase could be the first of several in which he partners with the pension fund. He said CalSTRS has $500 million it is looking to invest, an amount that could be leveraged up to $2 billion for acquisitions, and one that the article quoted Vic Bucchere as saying was a major vote of confidence in Silverstein, who had come under fire months ago after questions arose regarding whether he had the financial wherewithall to redevelop the WTC site.

While the purchase of 575 afforded the developer a brief respite from his synonymy with business dealings exclusive to Ground Zero, the focus on his involvement with the World Trade Center site is sure to be cast again in the spotlight as the fifth anniversary of 9/11 approaches and Silverstein Properties gears up for its release of the designs for Towers 2, 3, and 4.

Previously represented in renderings and models of the site by nearly identical looking block-like placeholders, the three buildings that Silverstein is planning to construct now evoke markedly different aesthetics from one another, a fact not surprising considering their designs were drafted by different architects who no doubt were each eager to put their own signature stamp on one of the most closely watched redevelopment projects ever.

Indeed, the three towers have less in common visually than 7 World Trade Center and the design for the Freedom Tower, which both were designed by SOM architect David Childs and share similar looking glass facades, clean and simple lines, and the presence of massive squarish sheathed pedestals upon which they both rise.

Yet apart from their strikingly different forms, Towers 2, 3, and 4 were the product of a collaborative design process that skirts what might be considered typical in the development of such commercial office towers.

Largely because each building will rise from a contiguous base of retail that will stretch across all three development sites, it was decided early on that the project's three architects, Sir Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Fumihiko Maki, as well as the Port Authority, which is overseeing the construction of the site's retail portion, should share a design studio.

Set up on the southeast corner of the 25th floor of 7 WTC--where in plain view just across the floor the television show, Law & Order, shoots scenes on a weekly basis in the glass-walled offices of the building's marketing suite that was built out by Silverstein Properties--the design studio is plastered with blueprints and renderings that exude the collective thinking that made the studio a central nerve in the site's redevelopment.

"This is an unusual design scenario, but this is a project of unusual complexity," said Silverstein Properties' project manager for the site, Serge Demerjian, who last worked managing the construction of the Time Warner Center.

He likened that project to a Swiss watch because of the complexity involved in seamlessly integrating its numerous components. The WTC site, because of its larger scale, has proved to be an even more complex undertaking he said.

"There are so many things that each site must share, various conduits have to line up, electrical systems, passageways, it was essential that everyone could be in the same room and work together to solve the various design challenges," Demerjian said.

While the three architects did most of their design work for the towers in their own respective studios, the studio in 7 WTC allowed them to address on a daily basis how the towers would integrate with the retail base and the site's infrastructure. It also was a way to perhaps avoid the kind of design miscommunication that spurred the redesign of the Freedom Tower after the NYPD exposed its security flaws last year.

According to Demerjian, the NYPD had visited the design studio and added input that informed the security features that were incorporated into the finished design for the towers and the retail base. Because all the site's stakeholders had a presence in the design studio and collaborated to create the final design, it is unlikely that there will be another instance of surprise last minute objections that precipitate further delays to the site's redevelopment.

"Having the studio made it a transparent process that allowed all the stakeholders to put this project together in the best possible way," Demerjian said.