BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC | The Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center has a new designer – and this time the design may actually get built.
The long-awaited cultural center, now expected to be completed in 2019, will be designed by Brooklyn-based architecture firm REX, according to a press release from the board.
REX has designed striking buildings across America, Europe, and the Middle East, and in 2011 it submitted a well-received design for the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place that featured a “floating platform” to provide a performance space for the second floor.
The WTC Performing Arts Center was part of Daniel Libeskind’s original master plan for Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks, but the project has has been plagued with funding challenges and delays.
After Libeskind’s 2003 plan came out, Frank Gehry and Snohetta were tapped in 2004 to design the center. But Gehry’s concept of irregularly stacked boxes with garnished trees was shelved in September of 2014.
Design issues have not been the only problem. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation — formed after the 9/11 attacks to allocate federal money to rebuild Downtown — has halved the amount of money for the center from $400 million to $200 million. The PAC is now seeking funds from private donors.
At a L.M.D.C. meeting on Nov. 12, $10 million of the $99 million designated for the PAC was released.
The center’s board is thrilled at the prospect of progress.
“We can’t wait to begin. We’re ready. It’s been promised for a long time and I believe it’s going to happen,” said Maggie Boepple, president of the PAC board.
Once envisioned as a 1,000-seat auditorium fit for such cultural institutions as the Joyce Theater, the revised plan presented to Community Board 1 early this year envision three much smaller theaters with capacities of 550, 350 and 150 seats.
It is unclear now what role, if any, the Joyce will now have.
“We hope to collaborate with them,” said a PAC spokeswoman.
The PAC will produce as well as premiere works of theater, dance, opera, music, and film and the roughly 80,000 square-foot building will also be home to the Tribeca Film Festival, according to the plan.
There is as yet no artistic director, but the spokeswoman said a search would begin next year. David Lan, who runs the Young Vic in London, was consulting artistic director for two years.
CB 1 has long advocated for the center, which will eventually sit where the temporary PATH station now stands. But when that station will be demolished is another question. Glenn Guzi told the board in October there is no date for its closure.
