The Freedom Tower may have attracted its first private tenant this week; a Chinese business known as the Beijing Vantone Real Estate Company has agreed to build a commerce and cultural center on five floors.

A letter of intent indicates that Vantone will lease 190,000 square feet for 22 years.  The company’s participation sounds like a solid “win” in what’s been a shaky process; it’s the sort of thing that could encourage other business to occupy World Trade Center space.  There is a potential problem with the deal, though.

“A developer who is building three towers at the World Trade Center site, Larry Silverstein, abandoned negotiations with Vantone in 2006 - when he was slated to build the Freedom Tower - after he claimed that the company signed a term sheet but then failed to deliver a letter of credit,” reports Peter Kiefer.

Kiefer then continues, “A year later, the same thing happened to the president and chief investment officer of L&L Holding Co., Robert Lapidus, for office space at 195 Broadway.”

So Vantone’s promise isn’t the sort of thing on which anyone should want to count.  Still, if its plan to move into the Freedom Tower can stir up interest, this will prove to be a significant development, and if it actually inhabits some space, all the better.