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WTC Performing Arts Center Names Brooklyn Architecture Firm REX As Designer

By Irene Plagianos | November 20, 2015 7:27pm | Updated on November 23, 2015 9:03am
 The PAC is slated to open in 2019.
The PAC is slated to open in 2019.
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REX

FINANCIAL DISTRICT —  The long-stalled Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center has chosen a new architect to finally get the project off the ground, the center announced Friday.

Brooklyn-based firm REX has been chosen to design the center — a cultural hub more than 12 years in the making. Famed architect Frank Gehry had been tapped years ago to design a previous, more expensive version of the center, but that plan was scrapped in 2014.

The news of the revamped design team comes a week after the PAC was given the the greenlight — and $10 million in funds — from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to move forward with its latest plan for the center.

The new iteration calls for a pared down, 80,000-square-foot theater, which will cost about $200 million — about half of original estimates.

The LMDC will provide about $100 million, while the rest will have to come from private funding.

The PAC is aiming to open in 2019, according to its board members.

The center's president, Maggie Boepple, has long said that the PAC will serve as a cultural anchor for Lower Manhattan, and feature theater, music, dance and other forms of art.

"New York City will soon have a brilliant cultural facility in the heart of Downtown Manhattan,” Boepple said in a statement Friday.