"It's just the idea of being in the spot. I feel their spirits," said Ferrer, a state tax auditor who lost more than 30 colleagues and friends when terrorists destroyed the twin towers. "I just don't think I can be there."
A deal approved last week that will put city, state and federal agencies into one quarter of available office space at ground zero has alarmed workers who say they can't go back to their jobs in a spot where nearly 2,800 people were killed on Sept. 11, 2001.
Several of the twin towers' former tenants, for different reasons, are also saying no to space in the state-of-the-art skyscrapers scheduled to open in five or six years.
Even the chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owned the twin towers and is tking 14 floors in another planned building on the site, has declared workers would find it too wrenching to move into the tallest and most symbolic skyscraper, the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower. The agency occupied the trade center during the 2001 attack and a 1993 terrorist truck bombing.
The agency, which has become the Freedom Tower's landlord, approved a deal that commits state and federal agencies to the 1,776-foot skyscraper, while the Port Authority and city will move to a second tower on the site. Government tenants also were first to occupy the trade center when it opened in the early 1970s.
Agency spokesman Steve Coleman said Tuesday it already has some private interest -- although he couldn't name specific companies -- and is launching a marketing campaign to secure more tenants for the Freedom Tower by the time it opens in 2011.
Ferrer and her colleagues do not want to be among them. The state Department of Taxation and Finance lost 31 people to the attacks; Ferrer was at the bank in the trade center concourse when the first plane hit.
She said she believes that the towers should be rebuilt -- "we have to show that they did not win," she says -- but would find it "impossible" to work there herself.
Jane Heisel, a department supervisor, said of the rebuilding of prime office space: "Businesswise, I can understand it." But she said she can't return. "For me, it feels like a cemetery."
The Department of Taxation and Finance is not guaranteed to return to ground zero. Christine Burling, spokeswoman for the Office of General Services, said the state would decide later which agencies would move there. She said the state would consider on a case-by-case basis" specific department requests to not go back to the trade center site, but said her office has received no such requests.
No city agencies have been named to return to the site either, but a union leader for 9,000 administrative employees said he still wonders about the air quality five years after the towers collapsed in a plume of toxic dust, as well as terrorism.
"We're all fearful that any of these landmarks becomes a target," said Arthur Cheliotes, president of Communications Workers of America Local 1180.
A downtown business leader said that it is too early to gauge interest in ground zero five years before buildings are built, but said the interest in neighboring 7 World Trade Center is proof that the towers will fill up. Nearly half of the 52-story building, which opened in May, is rented.
"Seven World Trade Center is a rocket ship relative to a lot of the product that's out there," said Eric Deutsch, president of the Alliance for Downtown New York. "It's the most modern, efficient office building in New York."
The buildings to come will be similarly equipped with the latest security and technology, and will become a new destination for financial tenants, said Deutsch, adding that he didn't see why former trade center tenants wouldn't move back.
But several contacted by The Associated Press said they weren't interested. Some said they were happy with their new space or had signed long leases after Sept. 11.
Richard Longyhore, managing principal for the New York region for Aon Corp., said the insurance broker is moving from midtown to downtown next year. He said the company may have had emotional concerns about returning to the space where 176 employees died, but also needed office space before it could be delivered at ground zero.
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