Fearless of a third attack, the city government of New York appears committed to leasing out a large quantity of space in the new World Trade Center (WTC) towers. The proposed lease will give the city 600,000 square feet of office space in Tower Four for fifteen years at the hefty price of $577 million.

Developer Larry Silverstein, who is overseeing reconstruction at the WTC site, has through 2009 to accept the city’s offer; otherwise the potential space is up for grabs. But the city isn’t the only potential suitor for the new WTC office space.  Federal and state governments, having lost numerous offices in the 9/11 attacks, are also eyeing a piece of the WTC, including 1 million square feet of the Freedom Tower.

For those of us that haven’t kept up with the glacial pace of the World Trade Center reconstruction efforts, here’s the deal: the original WTC site consisted of seven buildings, all of which were destroyed in the 9/11 attacks. The reconstructed site will consist of a centralized memorial, surrounded by five buildings of increasing height (a sixth building, 7 World Trade Center, has already been built on an adjacent site), culminating in the Freedom Tower (shown in the picture), which will hit the 1,776 foot mark, making it the world’s tallest building.

Of the thousands of lives and billions of dollars lost on 9/11, a significant share fell under the domain of the federal government. The Customs Service (now U.S. Customs and Border Protection), the Internal Revenue Service, the Secret Service, the Department of Defense, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; each agency had offices in the WTC complex prior to the terrorist attacks.

Prior to 9/11, the city of New York had a relatively minor presence in the WTC buildings: court and tax department offices, and, controversially, Mayor Rudy Guiliani’s emergency command center, located on the 23rd floor of 7 World Trade Center. With so much lost in what was the complex’s second terrorist attack in a decade, why haven’t the federal and local governments decided to relocate to a safer location?

Though the city of New York has already staked its 600,000 square foot claim, there is as yet no official lease drawn up with the federal government for its piece of the Freedom Tower. Supposedly, the Department of Homeland Security wants 650,000 square feet in the main tower, about 1/3 of it. One wonders why, after witnessing the chaos of 9/11, the federal government would choose such a historically vulnerable site to place what would be arguably our nation’s most vital federal agency in the event of another attack. Why, as the city of New York regains its former stability, would the city choose to put so many eggs in this one basket, oblivious to the lessons that could be gleaned from past misfortune?

The moves by the local and federal government to locate offices with operations essential to the public's safety post-disaster warrants the repetition of the old Chinese proverb: 'fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.'  Only next time we might have to add: "fool me three times, I'll just never get it."