Larry A. Silverstein is an American businessman. He has executed many real estate projects that include rebuilding the World Trade Center Complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City, and he is also the developer of one of the tallest towers in New York City at 30 Park Place he even has a home there.
What Is the Net Worth of Larry Silverstein?
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Larry Silverstein has an estimated net worth of $4 billion. He became widely popular after he bought The World Trade Center in 2001, just a month and a half prior when the complex was ruined in the 9/11 attack.
Early Life
Silverstein was born on May 30, 1931, in Brooklyn, New York City, the U.S. He went to attend High School of Music and Art in New York, and later he attended New York University, and graduated in 1952.
When he was in college, he served at a summer camp, and there he met Klara. In 1956, they got married. The couple had three children together named Lisa, Roger, and Sharon.
Klara used to work as a school teacher and backed the family with her pay in the initial years of their marriage whereas Silverstein continued to attend classes at Brooklyn Law School.
He engaged in real estate, along with his father, Harry G. Silverstein, and later Bernard H. Mendik who was his friend and brother-in-law. They founded Silverstein Properties in 1957 and named Harry G. Silverstein & Sons.
They purchased their first property in Manhattan. After the death of Harry G. Silverstein in 1966, Mendik and Larry Silverstein continued the business.
Mendik separated from Annette Silverstein Mendik in 1977, and during that, the business partnership also split up. Additionally, Mendik quoted disagreements upon strategies related to real estate, as Mendik wanted to purchase buildings whereas Silverstein preferred to build.
Career
Following the split between Mendik and Silverstein, they continued to be involved in the real estate sector but in different firms. Silverstein had already owned 5 buildings on Fifth Avenue by 1978, and 44 Wall Street, along with a shopping center in Stamford, Connecticut.
He did the renovation of the building at 11 West 42nd Street in 1980, and at 120 Broadway, he obtained the lease for the Equitable Building. He sold off the building at 711 Fifth Avenue to Coca-Cola in 1983 for a consideration of $57.6 million.
In 1980, Silverstein also purchased the building at 120 Wall Street, and that was built in 1930. He kept 20 floors of 120 Wall Street aside in 1991, to be leased as an Association Center by non-profit organizations, with tax incentives for the tenants and bonds for Silverstein to handle building renovations.
He had signed up fourteen nonprofit tenants for 120 Wall Street by 1994, and by 1997, the building was around at capacity and had 38 nonprofit tenants along with the National Urban League and the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America.
He won a bid in 1980 to lease and build the last undeveloped parcel from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, to develop the 47-story 7 World Trade Center.
New York was struggling with the impacts of the 1987 stock market crash during the 1990s, and that resulted in high vacancy rates at the World Trade Center.
In 1995, George Pataki became Governor of New York on a campaign of reducing costs, along with privatization of the World Trade Center. The property sale was regarded as much complicated, and hence the Port Authority decided to open a 99-year lease to cutthroat bidding.
Silverstein, through Silverstein Properties, made a $3.2 billion bid in January 2001, to lease-purchase the World Trade Center. Vornado Realty overpaid him by $30 million while Boston Properties and Brookfield Properties also competed for the lease.
In March, Vornado withdrew and gave Silverstein a period of fourteen days for negotiating a new bid. On April 26, 2001, in collaboration with Westfield America, Inc., Silverstein’s negotiated bid was finalized and accepted on July 24, 2001.
In the complex’s history of 31 years, this was the first time that it had altered management. Following its withdrawal, Vornado made the announcement of a pact with Bloomberg LP to fund the new headquarters of Bloomberg at 731 Lexington Avenue.
The lease agreement was applicable to One, Two, Four, and Five World Trade Center, and nearly 425,000 square feet of retail space. Silverstein gave $14 million of his personal money in order to crack the pact.
As a leaseholder, this agreement provided Silverstein with the right and the responsibility to reconstruct the structures if ruined.
Though Silverstein is popular for his engagement at the World Trade Center, there are also several other buildings in New York City that his real estate holdings include along with 1177 Avenue of the Americas, 570 Seventh Avenue, and 529 Fifth Avenue.
Furthermore, he was engaged as a developer of the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., which is home to the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Silverstein decided to purchase the building at 99 Church Street from Moody’s for a consideration of $170 million in November 2006. Moody’s shifted its headquarters two blocks west into Silverstein’s redeveloped 7 World Trade Center in 2007.
At 99 Church Street, the old building was rapidly demolished in order to make way for the new project on the site by Silverstein. A 68-story, 912-foot tower plan was proposed in 2008 and consisted of a 4 Seasons Hotel over the initial 22 stories and condominiums in the upper two-thirds.
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Although, because of a deficit in the financing, the project was delayed through 2013, and finished in 2016. Robert A. M. Stern designed the building, the tallest residential tower downtown, and promoted it as 30 Park Place on October 5, 2016, it was formally opened.
Silverstein also purchased a $34 million worth penthouse on the 80th floor of the building, which bypasses the World Trade Center complex. The previous apartment that James Stewart Polshek custom designed at 500 Park Avenue was sold by him in January 2019.
As founder and chairman emeritus of New York University’s Real Estate Institute, as well as a trustee of the New York University Medical Center and Health System, he has been engaged in his alma mater.
In addition to that, he has served as chairman of the United Jewish Appeal in New York, the Realty Foundation, treasurer of the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver and trustee of the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Apart from that, he is a governor of The Real Estate Board of New York.
Silverstein made a donation of $5 million in 2012, to Hunter College, his wife Klara’s alma mater, to finance the Klara and Larry Silverstein Student Success Center.
He gave Klara a surprise with the gift after she delivered her farewell speech as chairwoman of the Hunter College Foundation board of directors. In the same year, Silverstein and Klara made a donation of $5.25 million to New York University School of Medicine in order to form the Silverstein Scholarship Fund.
He gave the keynote address on May 17, 2017, to the graduating class of the School of Medicine, which had 7 Silverstein Scholars.
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