NEW YORK, Jan 5: The owner of the World Trade Centre site is teaming up with an Australian retailer to develop upscale stores and restaurants in the new office towers being built at the ground zero site of the Sept 11, 2001 terror attacks.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey approved the $1.45 billion (euro0.98 billion) deal on Friday with The Westfield Group, one of the world’s largest mall operators.

The company held retail rights to the trade centre complex before the twin towers were destroyed in the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attack. But Westfield sold them to the Port Authority two years later for $140 million (euro95.06 million) after disagreements about how to rebuild the complex, preferring to recreate the trade centre’s lucrative underground mall instead of planned street-level shops at the new towers.

Westfield, which retained a first-refusal right to buy back into the complex, and the Port Authority are now sharing development costs and profits for nearly 500,000 square feet of retail space at three skyscrapers and in concourses connecting the buildings to a transit hub.

The Sydney, Australia-based retailer will contribute $625 million (euro424.39 million) and the Port Authority $825 million (euro560.2 million) to build high-end stores and restaurants, half of them facing city streets that are being resurrected at the former superblock complex.

Westfield will have a 50 per cent interest in retail profits after receiving an 8 percent return on its capital investments.

“It’s a thrill for Westfield to be back,” said Westfield Group co-managing director Peter Lowy. “We are excited to have the opportunity to reinvest in this great city and be involved with the redevelopment of this historic site.”

Downtown New Yorkers had been clamouring to return a major shopping centre to the city’s booming residential community. The underground shopping mall at the trade centre was one of the most lucrative in the country before it was destroyed in the terrorist attack.—AP