“The Nasdaq Stock Market is staying near Ground Zero,” writes Kate Kelly in today’s Wall Street Journal.

“Little more than a year after announcing its intention to move from New York’s financial district to midtown Manhattan, Nasdaq is retreating from that plan and opting instead to stay in its current headquarters, across the street from the World Trade Center site.”

“Nasdaq said it is making the move in light of ‘adjustments’ in the New York City real-estate market that may make it easier to rent out its space near Times Square — where the company signed a long-term lease in May at the urging of Nasdaq Chairman Hardwick ‘Wick’ Simmons — rather than find a tenant for its downtown lease.”

“Though the move involves only about 200 New York employees, Nasdaq’s decision to stay in the Wall Street area nevertheless will carry important symbolic value.”

“Since the terrorist attacks of September 2001, employees of many financial companies who once worked downtown, including firms such as Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Morgan Stanley and Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc., have been relocated to new locations away from Ground Zero.”

“Others, such as Merrill Lynch & Co. and American Express Co., have opted to continue operating from downtown, though the area’s successes have been spotty as leasing activity has lagged, real-estate professionals say. ‘We saw a real dropoff in activity at the end of the year,’ says Gus Field, a senior director downtown for Cushman & Wakefield Inc., a New York-based real-estate services company. Only recent decisions by some landlords to drop rents have sparked renewed interest this week, he adds.”

“The latest push to attract law firms downtown has yielded a few smaller leases: In November, Thacher Proffitt & Wood signed a 137,000-square-foot sublease from Merrill Lynch at 2 World Financial Center (a complex that had been connected to the Trade Center), following Richards Spears Kibbe & Orbe, which last summer took 88,000 square feet of former Lehman Brothers space at 1 World Financial Center.”

“To Nasdaq employees, the company’s reversal comes as little surprise. Despite Nasdaq’s announcement in October 2001 that it was moving to midtown, many employees have remained at the company’s downtown site across from the Trade Center area, at One Liberty Plaza, on what had initially been viewed as a temporary basis. One Nasdaq staffer said that so few employees have been working from midtown since a lease was signed with the manager of 1500 Broadway in May that the move back to One Liberty would have little practical effect on the business.”