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Seven months after receiving the largest retention deal in city history, the New York Stock Exchange is having second thoughts about building a new headquarters across the street from its current site.
So far, the NYSE's discussions about whether to proceed with the new headquarters, which features a much larger trading floor, have been strictly within the high ranks of the exchange.
But with electronic trading rapidly changing the way stocks are bought and sold, many experts believe the exchange will need far less trading floor space in 2004, when the new building would be completed. As a result, Chairman Richard Grasso and other top NYSE executives are reconsidering their commitment to the new headquarters, which could cost the city and the exchange $1 billion and be obsolete the day it opens, sources say.
"They've told me they're re-evaluating the need for a new building," says an exchange insider who has been briefed on the matter. "The markets are changing so quickly they can't plan six months from now, much less five years from now."
A spokesman for the NYSE declined to comment, saying the exchange does not respond to rumors."
The rethinking is being done as quietly as possible. J.P. Morgan & Co., an NYSE member that controls two...