UNITED NATIONS – The manager of a costly and much-delayed plan to renovate the United Nations' New York headquarters announced recently that he was resigning in frustration after less than a year.
New York real estate veteran Louis Frederick Reuter, 62, is executive director of the U.N. Capital Master Plan and has privately complained of U.S. interference in his work as well as other problems that have prevented the plan from going forward quickly, associates said. He told U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan he would leave June 30.
The 54-year-old U.N. headquarters compound is riddled with asbestos and lacks fire detectors, a sprinkler system and other emergency devices.
The United Nations has been working for six years on a renovation plan for its main office tower but construction has yet to begin.
Reuter said in a statement that a number of factors were behind his decision “including the lack of clear support by many major stakeholders and difficulties of working within U.N. practice as it applies to a large building project.”
Associates said his mention of insufficient support referred primarily to Washington.
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton expressed disappointment at Reuter's decision “at this critical point” and said Washington supported “the idea of the renovation to the building.”
“We have heard he will be moving on to a very lucrative possibility in the private sector . . . ,” Bolton added.
But Reuter denied his move stemmed from accepting a new position, “although I am naturally interested in moving funded and approved projects into the ground.”
The latest version of the U.N. renovation plan, estimated at $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion or more, has been scaled back and stretched out to avoid moving the whole organization into temporary headquarters while the work is carried out.
From the start, the project has been beset by concerns over how to pay for it. Because Washington pays about a quarter of the regular U.N. budget, the U.S. share could run to $400 million or more in the event of cost overruns.
The U.N. General Assembly's budget committee last month approved initial spending of about $100 million for design and preconstruction work.
