Port Authority lights up World Trade Center tower for holidays

To mark the upcoming holiday season, the still-under-construction One World Trade Center tower was illuminated with colored lights on Tuesday.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates many of the busiest and most important transportation links in the region, owns the 16-acre World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan.

Construction workers from Five Star Electric — the tower’s electrical contractor — volunteered their time to place colored cellophane wrapping around the existing interior lights to create the holiday look.

One World Trade Center — which can now be seen from points in all five New York City boroughs and in New Jersey — has reached the 90th floor, leaving 14 floors remaining.

The tower’s glass façade has reached the 65th floor and the concrete floors have been built to the 82nd floor.

The building steel is scheduled to top out in the first quarter of 2012, and the building is scheduled for completion by the end of 2013. Approximately half of the tower’s 3 million square feet of office space has been leased.

With an antenna tower rising 1,776 feet high, One World Trade Center will become the Western Hemisphere's tallest building upon completion.

The property will consist of 3 million square feet of Class-A office space on 71 office floors, a grand public lobby graced with 50-foot ceilings, and an observation deck 1,241 feet above ground, among other amenities. Designed by world-renowned architect David Childs of Skidmore Owings & Merrill, One World Trade Center is expected to be the most environmentally sustainable project of its size in the world. The project incorporates a range of environmentally sensitive features based on LEED Gold criteria established by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Workers commuting to and from One World Trade Center will enjoy seamless access to an unprecedented confluence of mass transit services. Ultra-modern, climate-controlled corridors will connect the tower to The World Trade Center Transportation Hub — designed by architect Santiago Calatrava — and the new PATH terminal, 11 NYC Transit subway lines and the new Fulton Street Transit Center, the World Financial Center and ferry terminal, and at least 360,000 square feet of world-class shopping and dining.