First Lease at Ground Zero

Crain's is reporting that Larry Silverstein has his first lease at 7 World Trade Center. And it's not some wimpy government office, either: "According to sources close to the deal, a unit of the American Express Co. is in the final stages of negotiating a 15-year lease for about 20,000 square feet at the 52-story skyscraper," the magazine reports. Massive incentive packages for renting space in the building have Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, who calls the incentives his "Marshall plan," taking a lot of the credit for the lease-signing. The Minneapolis-based AmEx subsidiary is soon to spin off the large financial services company. It'll be renamed RiverSource.