A preliminary sketch of the layout of the performing arts center by Charcoalblue, a British theater consultant on the project.
Following a dozen years of fits and starts, plans for a performing arts center at the World Trade Center took an important step forward on Thursday with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation’s approval of funding toward the building’s design.
“It’s been promised for a long time and now I’m starting to believe it’s going to happen,” Maggie Boepple, president of the Performing Arts Center (PAC), told the LMDC board before their vote to authorize $10 million for design and engineering services.
Boepple said the design team would be announced next week.
It has been more than a year since Boepple let it be known that the center had dropped its original architect, Frank Gehry, citing cost concerns.
In order to go ahead with the project, the LMDC board had insisted in July that the center be built for no more than $200 million, about half of its originally projected cost. LMDC officials say they are now convinced that is possible and they are willing to commit half of the needed funds. The other half, approximately $100 million, must be raised privately by the center.
“We feel that a lot of underbrush has been cleared away,” said David Emil, president of the LMDC, a city-state agency formed to distribute federal funds following the World Trade Center attacks. “And we have a clear view of how to move forward with the project.”
The building’s design concept is due to be revealed next May, with a more developed schematic design expected in November and final construction documents ready in February 2018. Emil said he did not want to comment on when the building could be completed.
The $10 million for design and engineering services, along with $1.57 million already authorized, comes from a $100 million fund that the LMDC is contributing toward the center.
Private fundraising for the remaining money is ongoing, though Boepple said it is premature to reveal how far they are from their goal.
According to an LMDC report, the current plan for the center, to be located where the temporary PATH station now stands, calls for a roughly 80,000-square-foot structure with “two or possibly three theaters consisting of 600 and 200 seats or two theaters on the main floor with black box theaters above.”
In an appearance last January before Community Board 1, Lucy Sexton, the PAC’s associate creative director, said the center would feature a wide array of offerings, including theater, dance, music, musical theater and “new” opera.
“These are lofty goals, they are adventurous goals,” said Sexton, who runs the New York Dance and Performance Awards or “Obies,” “but I think that if you’re going to build a new theater it’s what’s required.”