Larry Silverstein

Who they are

Larry Silverstein is the founder of Silverstein Properties and the developer most closely tied to the World Trade Center. He signed the 99-year lease on the Twin Towers weeks before 9/11 and spent the following quarter century rebuilding the site through insurance, legal and financing fights with the Port Authority and everyone else at the table. Federal Liberty Bonds were part of the toolkit: about $3B of the program's $8B went to his rebuild. He is also the author of a memoir about it, 'The Rising', which The Promote has contrasted with Lynne Sagalyn's more clinical 'Power at Ground Zero.'

For years the unfinished piece was 2 World Trade Center. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and 21st Century Fox signed a nonbinding letter of intent in 2015, then backed out at the last minute. Later tries at anchor tenants and a federal infrastructure loan did not work out either. Talks with American Express surfaced in 2024, with a then-93-year-old Silverstein reported to want the tower started in his lifetime.

In February 2026 the deal landed, though not quite as an anchor lease. Amex will be the sole owner and occupant of the 55-story, roughly 2M sf Norman Foster-designed tower, with Silverstein Properties acting as a fee developer. By September 2026, Silverstein's final tower at the site was set to rise, 25 years after the attacks. Meanwhile, the firm he built has been handed to the next generation: after former CEO Marty Burger was pushed out in 2023, daughter Lisa Silverstein became CEO. The firm has since been reshaping itself, selling 1177 Avenue of the Americas, pushing office-to-residential conversions and building out a sizable lending arm. Its Manhattan casino bid was rejected at the committee stage in 2025.