LOWER MANHATTAN — The World Trade Center Performing Arts Center is finally pushing ahead towards construction.
The long-stalled project, which has waded through redesigns and budget issues over nearly 12 years, has gotten the go-ahead for its latest plan from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which approved $10 million towards the PAC's design and construction on Thursday.
In order to move forward, the PAC was told in July by the LMDC — an agency formed in the aftermath of 9/11 to distribute federal funds — that it would need to pare down its construction budget to $200 million.
Previous versions of the arts center, slated to be built at Greenwich and Vesey streets, where the temporary WTC PATH train station now sits, had called for a budget of upwards of $400 million.
Though specifics of the new design were not discussed at the LMDC meeting Thursday, approval of the new funds signaled that the LMDC was confident the PAC would be able to proceed inside the $200 million budget.
“We feel that a lot of underbrush has been cleared away,” said David Emil, president of the LMDC at the meeting. “And we have a clear view of how to move forward with the project.”
The LMDC has agreed to offer a total of $100 million of federal funding, as long as the PAC was able to move ahead with a $200 million plan. The PAC will need to fund the rest through private donations — the arts center has not said how much it has raised to date.
Last year, the PAC scrapped its Frank Gehry-designed space that would have housed a 1,000-seat theater. Under a new design plan, the center, at about 80,000 square feet, would be home to two or three smaller theaters, with seats for about 200 to 600 people. The cultural center would feature dance, theater, music and other forms of art.
Chelsea's Joyce Theater has been attached to the cultural center's plans for years, though its role with the PAC still remains undefined.
Emil said they expect to have conceptual design plans and cost estimates from the PAC in about four months. The whole design process could take up to 18 months, before construction would even start, Emil said.
In the interim, the temporary PATH station would have to be moved — something that's slated to happen sometime in 2016.
Maggie Boepple, president of the PAC, said more details about the center's design and its new team will be coming in the next few weeks.
"We can't wait to begin, we're ready, everyone is very excited," Boepple said during the meeting. "I can assure you were going to be working as hard as we can to get this project built because it's really important for Downtown, it's been promised for a long time — and now I'm starting to believe its going to happen."
