Whitehead to REBNY: Positive spin to future. (Lower Manhattan Development).

A few months after Sept. 11, Governor George Pataki called John Whitehead asking him to chair the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation. Instead of jumping at the offer, Whitehead took out a yellow notepad. Then he listed the pros and cons beneath separate columns.

"And the cons outweighed the pros," joked the 79-year-old, snowy haired chairman of the subsequently abbreviated Lower Manhattan Development Corporation during last week's Real Estate Board of New York luncheon.

The event was held in a ballroom at the Roosevelt Hotel, across town from the event's typical venue at the Hilton. An army of brokers mingled with one another during the extended cocktail reception preceding the lunch, and one REBNY official was pleased at the turnout.

Missing from the event was LMDC executive director Louis Tomson, who was originally slated to speak.

Whitehead, formerly a Goldman Sachs banker, put a positive spin on the present state--and future prospects--of lower Manhattan. So far, said Whitehead, the LMDC is taking shape as a "great group that boasts people from all walks of life."

With a new office in One Liberty Plaza overlooking Ground Zero his staff will spearhead the planning and supervision side, but their duties will not include executing those plans, he said.

He said that the loss of commercial tenants downtown is a major issue right now, even though some are "drifting back."

"Those who left will regret it. Wall Street is the capital of the financial industry;" he said.

Whitehead also said that owners looking to sell property downtown will regret it. since prices will come back up eventually.

Excavation of the six-floor mail beneath the World Trade Center should be completed by May 31, he said. And he downplayed reports in the press that a three-way dispute between the LMDC, the mayor and governor had erupted over recent weeks.

"We are all working closely together," he said.

At one point during his speech, Whitehead recognized Larry Silverstein in the crowd. He pledged that the developer would be able to begin development on a building at the 7 World Trade Center site later on this year. He predicted that the future memorial on the site will be a major tourist attraction.

"It will be a bigger attraction than the Metropolitan Museum of Art uptown," he said.

An interim site for a temporary memorial will be opened by this spring.

Whitehead envisions a complex on the site that closely resembles Rockefeller Center, with "a common theme among buildings." He also said that other civic projects on the site could include a performing arts center.

During the brief Q & A session that followed, Whitehead offered a vague response to the question of where the NYSE will be housed in the, future. He did say that there is "no practical chance" that .the NYSE will move out, of lower Manhattan, however.