Ronald Perelman, seen here at the Vanity Fair Tribeca Film Festival party in 2012, has donated $75 million to build the Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center, which is now set to bear his name.
Technically, the board of the unbuilt performance space is merely expressing its appreciation to a generous patron, but the long-anticipated Downtown theater complex is now set to be named the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center, after the billionaire pledged $75 million to the project.
Perelman said he hopes the eponymous preforming arts center will be a symbol of Downtown’s resiliency.
“My hope and expectation is that the PAC will be more than a performance venue,” said Perelman. “It will represent the vitality and energy that has emerged in response to the tragedy of 9/11, and it will be a constant reminder of resilience and healing through artistic expression and community.”
Until now, the long-stalled project had been more a symbol of the difficulties faced when trying to rebuild on the World Trade Center site.
The preforming arts center was promised in the original 2002 master plan for the new WTC campus, but has yet to even break ground, because the site is occupied by a temporary PATH train station that had to remain in operation while the gigantic, $4-billion World Trade Center Transportation Hub was under construction. The extravagant concourse — nicknamed the Oculus for its long skylight, and the Stegosaurus for its spiny, skeletal look — was originally projected to open in 2009, but repeated delays put off its completion until this year. The temporary PATH station only closed last month, and no date has yet been set for its demolition.
As recently as last year, the center’s president and director Maggie Boepple said that the space could be open as soon as 2018, but now PAC officials only hope to break ground by then, with the opening pushed back until 2020.
The PAC@WTC has also faced problems with funding.
The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation — formed after the 9/11 attacks to allocate federal money to rebuild Downtown — originally promised $400 million for the project, but later cut the funding to half that amount, forcing the center’s board to seek private donations like the one pledged by Perelman last month.
“All of us at the PAC are profoundly grateful to Ronald for his extraordinary support of this project,” said Boepple. “We share a vision of a PAC that is both a birthplace for the finest in the contemporary performing arts and a vital hub for all members of the Downtown community. We look forward to his partnership and guidance as the PAC takes shape in the years ahead.”
Last November, the center’s board tapped Brooklyn-based architecture firm REX to design the complex after dropping starchitect Frank Gehry from the project in 2014. The new design will feature three separate theaters with flexible layouts, which can be combined to create different configurations within the space, according to the board.
When it finally is complete, the PAC is expected to produce and premiere works of theater, dance, music, musical theater, opera, and film, as well as productions that cross multiple disciplines.
