On a clear day in Manhattan, subway riders emerging

from the Columbus Circle station may be momentarily blinded by the sunlight

shimmering off two glass-sheathed towers. Tourists pass by and snap photographs

of the nearly completed 750-foot-high monoliths, shaped like parallelograms.

They soar over the edge of Central Park South and the circle where the iconic

statue of Christopher Columbus also rises above this busy transportation hub.

The twin 80-story skyscrapers of the Time Warner Center, which broke ground

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in 2000, will open in stages - starting later this month - on a site where

master builder Robert Moses' New York Coliseum once stood. At more than $1.8

billion, they constitute New York City's first major building project to be

completed since the World Trade Center towers fell.

The complex comprises Time Warner's world headquarters and New York studios

for CNN, as well as 201 condominium units (including 10 penthouses), a

seven-tier arcade for six restaurants and a collection of upscale retailers, a

luxury hotel and a jazz performing arts facility.

With 2.8 million square feet, the project will become "the Rockefeller

Center of the 21st century," predicts Stephen M. Ross, chairman and chief

executive of The Related Companies, one of the center's development partners,

who include William L. Mack, co-founder of Apollo Real Estate Advisors.

"We're giving people a place to shop on the West Side," Ross said, adding

that Whole Foods Market, the center's largest retail tenant, "will be a major

attraction. There's a health club that the community can join. There are

tremendous economic opportunities for the city."

Still, the center has been the target of litigation and community

complaints over the effect of construction at the site, which covers 2 1/2 city

blocks.

Ethel Sheffer, an urban planner and former chairwoman of the Tri-Board Task

Force on Columbus Circle, a group composed of Community Boards 4, 5 and 7,

said her group approved of the site plans and overall design by renowned

architect David M. Childs, consulting design partner at the Manhattan office of

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. But the task force has objected to several aspects

of the project, which was approved by the Metropolitan Transportation

Authority, as well as city and state agencies and officials.

"It's much too big," Sheffer said. "But the key issues are the renovation

[of] and planning for the circle, so that it's really a place that is a public

asset and a respectful entry to Central Park and not just a place for cars."

Others have questioned whether the new behemoth might be vulnerable to

another terrorist attack or blackout - an issue Ross largely discounts.

"We did a lot of things" after 9/11, he said during an interview in a

penthouse in the south tower at West 58th Street, dubbed the One Central Park

Club. "We strengthened the steel so there is no way the building will collapse.

Every elevator has backup generators so there's no way anyone will be stuck,

which seems to be on everyone's mind."

All the security technology is built in, Ross added. "Anywhere in the

building, you can plug in the wall and you can telecast [voice and pictures] to

any place in the building," he said. "There's high-speed Internet. It's state

of the art."

Among the new residents will be British financier David Martinez, who

recently plunked down $45 million to join 1 1/3 units in the south tower for a

penthouse on the 76th and 77th floors that commands spectacular views of the

park and skyline through 25-foot-high walls of glass. Others are singer Ricky

Martin and interior decorator/author Lady Henrietta Spencer Churchill, a

granddaughter of Winston Churchill who reportedly paid $8.5 million for a

three-bedroom apartment she designed herself in the north tower.

The twin edifices also provide enough elbow room - 193,000 square feet -

for Class A, or top-of-the-line rental office space, another 865,000 square

feet of office space for 1,700 Time Warner employees, and Jazz at Lincoln

Center, a 100,000- square-foot performing arts complex that former Mayor

Rudolph Giuliani imposed as a requirement on several major development teams

that vied to get the treasured 3.4-acre property from the MTA. Designed by

Rafael Vinoly Architects and billed as the first facility ever devoted to the

art form, Jazz encompasses a 1,100-seat theater, a 600-seat performance atrium,

recording studios, classrooms and a 140-seat jazz club, Dizzy's Club Coca

Cola, named after the legendary trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie.

Damaged by a fire in April, Jazz will nevertheless open on schedule in the

fall of 2004, said David Worsley, a vice president with Columbus Centre LLC,

Related's development wing.

In a few weeks, New Yorkers will be able to see how two major components in

the development come together: the 249-room Mandarin Oriental Hotel, which

Ross said will open Oct. 29; and the residential condos, which could be ready

for occupancy around the same time. The hotel spans 19 floors in the north

tower and will offer 24-hour food service to guests and condo residents in both

towers as well as access to its health club, pool, banquet facilities and

ballroom. Real estate agents handling the condo sales say that nearly 60

percent of the condos have been sold for a total close to almost $600 million.

For example, broker Dolly Lenz, executive vice president and managing

director of Insignia Douglas Elliman, which in March was purchased by Long

Island Prudential Realty, says she has closed more than $160 million in condo

sales at the towers and has contracts out - "but not signed" - for $25 million

more. Among Lenz's 19 buyers, six have primary residences on Long Island and

six others have homes in the Hamptons.

"They want the light and the height and cutting- edge design of the

building," she said. "They want the services like dog walking, any kind of hair

or body treatment, mud treatment - all the spa treatments that the entire

complex can enjoy."

Eva Mohr, senior vice president of Sotheby's International Realty, said she

closed on a $30-million Time Warner condo shortly after Sept. 11. "There's

fabulous security," she said. "You can't walk in off the street."

There's also a waiting lounge for chauffeurs so that they don't have to

hang out on the street, she said, referring to one of three below-ground

garages with valet service for 549 cars. "This is a lifestyle. You buy much

more than a doorman opening the door. You buy access to every amenity

imaginable."

Susan M. de Franca, a senior vice president at Related, said prices for the

condos initially started at $1.8 million for a two-bedroom 1,300-square-foot

apartment overlooking the Hudson River and ranged to more than $35 million for

a full-floor 8,400- square-foot penthouse. But, "We've have had five price

increases since August of 2001."

The locations of the condos in the 80-story buildings depend on whom you

talk to.

"There are different methods for calculating the floors" for marketing

purposes, said de Franca. "The higher the floor, the greater the status symbol."

Such quibbles over status tend to rankle residents on the ground, including

those in the Clinton community, for whom the Time Warner building project has

been a nightmare of noise, traffic congestion and dirt.

"There was a long period of time where they were blasting away for the

foundation before the building ever went up because Manhattan is built on rock,

and it seemed they were blasting forever," recalls Simone Sindin, a former

chairwoman of Community Board 4.

Hardhats began razing the coliseum in 1999; groundbreaking for the

buildings took place in November 2000, eventually bringing as many as 2,300

workers to the site early many mornings and often at night.

"The neighborhood has changed, and it's been difficult living here because

of the endless pollution and noise," said Sindin, who is also president of

Coliseum Park Apartments, a co-op that includes her building on West 60th

Street next to the north tower.

"I'm simply amazed that no one has been killed by a car," Sindin added,

alluding to snarled traffic and closed pedestrian walkways that have resulted

as well from the city's $20-million landscaping makeover of Columbus Circle.

However, two construction workers have been killed in accidents. And the

federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has 38 open cases in

which various construction companies have been cited for violations at the

site, as well as fines "in the thousands of dollars" for the center's major

contractor, Bovis Lend Lease, said Sid Dinsay, a spokesman for the city's

building department. At the same time Dinsay described the project's overall

record for safety as "pretty good," considering its size and complexity.

Redevelopment of site occupied by the coliseum - which had become

extraneous after the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center was built - has taken

almost two decades, largely because of objections by West Side community

groups. Related was the second company tapped by the MTA to develop the

property.

The first plan was put forth by Boston Properties, a real estate firm run

by Mortimer Zuckerman, who also owns the New York Daily News. Zuckerman

proposed building a 925-foot-high monolith in 1985, but those plans were beaten

back in part by litigation and community protests, including one staged by the

Municipal Arts Society in which demonstrators showed up with black umbrellas

to show how such a high rise would cast shadows on Central Park. Then came the

stock market crash of 1987. Zuckerman scaled down the design for his proposal,

but abandoned it in the mid-1990s.

Related and Apollo Real Estate bought the land from the MTA in 1998 for

more than $346 million, plus other costs that brought the total purchase price

to "over $400 million," Ross said. GMAC Commercial Mortgage provided a

$1.3-billion construction loan.

Ross credits Time Warner's decision to sign on as a major tenant as a key

factor in his team getting selected by the MTA and getting approval from state

and city agencies. Another factor was architect Childs' design of the center,

particularly the Jazz at Lincoln Center complex, which was essential to

Giuliani's approval.

"It was the way we had Jazz at Lincoln Center on the fifth floor and

featured it in some of the best space in the building, making it our

signature," Ross said.

The developers were not subject to city's Uniform Land Use Review Process

because the site was on state land. And Ross acknowledged filing the project as

an "alteration" of the coliseum, rather than new construction. Critics say

Ross' team was able to speed up city reviews by filing the project as an

alteration of an existing structure, but Ross but said that didn't speed up the

project because the zoning was already in place and "we were ready to go."

Some West Side activists, who have fought development for nearly 20 years,

continue to criticize the Time Warner Center, even as it nears completion.

"The thing is too big and it's environmentally unsound," said Olive Freud,

vice president of the Committee for Environmentally Sound Development, a group

that unsuccessfully sued Ross in federal court, saying the center violated

provisions of the Clean Air Act. "The real horror is the traffic and the size

of the building. We were against the tearing down of the coliseum," she said.

City Council member Gayle A. Brewer, whose district includes Columbus

Circle, said at least six other construction projects are now adding to

congestion in the neighborhood. Her office has received numerous complaints

about issues such as weekend and night work at the Time Warner development, she

said, noting that a subcommittee of the tri-board task force, set up public

meetings to address community issues, as well as a hotline and Web site to

contact construction managers about problems like double-parked delivery trucks.

Brewer also said she is working "night and day" to get jobs at the site for

lower-income residents in the community. Joshua S. Bocian, Brewer's director

of constituent services, told a recent public meeting that the Mandarin

Oriental Hotel had 200 job openings.

Such jobs should be offered first to local residents, Brewer said,

especially "after all they have suffered, between the noise and the traffic and

the dirt."

Mary Reinholz is a freelance writer. She may be reached via e-mail at

reinho4@aol.com.