Ground Zero project behind schedule

NEW YORK, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is racking up costly penalties for missing a deadline to complete preparations at the World Trade Center site.

Since the Jan. 1 deadline passed, the port authority has started accruing fines of $300,000 a day -- or more than $3 million so far, The New York Times reported Sunday.

The agency is not expected to finish site preparations at Ground Zero until next month, so the penalties could exceed $13 million.

Penalties are paid to Silverstein Properties, owned by developer Larry Silverstein, whose company has leased the site and will build on it.

"It makes sense that penalties are worked into development deals with the port authority, since it has a history of slowing things up thanks to the bureaucratic maze that exists there," said George Marlin, an investment banker who led the authority from 1995 to 1997.

The authority insists, however, it has done everything possible to further the project, the newspaper reported.

"We weren't slowed by paperwork or bureaucracy," said Anthony Shorris, executive director of the agency, which owns the site. "It was the challenge of doing a project of this scale in this short a time."