I just saw this hit the wire.

Well well, the Port Authority is at it again.  $321 million bonanza in tax and lease payments could soon revert to the Wall Street powerhouse, which piled up $11.6 billion in profits last year.

New Yorkers are on the hook to hand over $321 million to Goldman Sachs, America’s richest investment bank, because the Port Authority failed to rebuild the World Trade Center as fast as promised.   According to the New York Daily News, Ex-Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg approved a deal back in 2005 with hidden terms.   The deal included but wasn’t limited to, providing $1.65 billion in tax-free Liberty Bonds and a $115 million incentive package.  At the time, Goldman Sachs was threatening to decamp to New Jersey.  The city and state agreed to pay huge penalties to the firm if the Port Authority didn’t complete major portions of the Ground Zero redevelopment by next year, a target now impossible to meet, not to mention financially convenient for Goldman.

Albany and City Hall agreed that Goldman could keep its $161 million it owed in rent and $160 million in sales taxes that were heading into escrow accounts if two conditions were not met:

- Specific blockbuster transit-and-security projects on the Trade Center footprint had to be finished by the end of next year, when Goldman’s tower will be finished. Officials concede that’s not going to happen – and that the projects are years behind schedule.

- A comprehensive security plan for downtown had to be “implemented” before 2010. That counter terrorist plan can’t be fully “implemented,” as the deal requires, until the structures at Ground Zero are in place.

Goldman Sachs is building its own $2.4 billion tower across from the site on West St, but thanks to this horrible failure to rebuild the WTC in time that will cost New York taxpayers, the company can now gain 64 years of free rent worth $161 million that it’s supposed to pay for leasing the state land.  Goldman Sachs could also recoup an additional $160 million in sales tax payments.

DOUGLAS FEIDEN, NY DAILY NEWS

Goldman spokeswoman Andrea Raphael declined to comment, but in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing four months ago, the firm made note of the escrow deal and implied it could be pocketing the ground-lease payments.

“Under the terms of the ground lease, we made a lump-sum ground rent payment in June 2007 of $161 million, which was paid into escrow, to be released to the Battery Park City Authority pending performance of specified state and city obligations,” it said.

“The city is on track to provide a comprehensive security plan for lower Manhattan by the end of 2009 as required by the agreement, and we are working with the Port Authority and Lower Manhattan Development Corp. to help them meet the other deadlines,” said Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert Lieber.

Lawyers are likely to argue this point: How can a security plan for Ground Zero be “implemented” by 2010 if none of the iconic buildings at the site are wrapped up by that time?

Sources close to the deal said only that the state and city are in preliminary talks with Goldman to win a bit of flexibility.

“The state and Goldman Sachs have and continue to have productive conversations on ensuring that downtown is rebuilt in a manner that is fair to both workers and residents and, of course, all taxpayers,” said Avi Schick, chairman of the LMDC.

Among the projects supposed to see ribbon cuttings by 2010:

- The Transportation Hub: With its soaring wings designed to resemble a bird in flight, the PATH terminal was originally planned to open in 2006. A new report says there’s less than a 5% chance of the hub being complete before July 2012.

- The Vehicular Security Center under Liberty St.: A centerpiece of security operations, this is the planned $478 million subterranean complex through which delivery trucks and buses will access the 16-acre site. Construction of the high-tech security checkpoint can’t even start until the toxic former Deutsche Bank tower above it is finally demolished. The latest estimated opening date is 2011 or 2012.