The World Trade Center’s Perelman Performing Arts Center Receives $89 Million in Funding

Last week, The Perelman Center received $89 million in funding for the construction of the future Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center. The funds came from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and up the total amount of construction costs now covered to 82 percent. The building will be designed by REX Architecture, and will rise 138 feet tall. The inside will be constructed with a steel structural system. It will hold multiple theaters and performance spaces within, while the exterior will be faced in a signature marble envelope on all four sides.

Maggie Boepple, the President of The Perelman Center, said “We are deeply grateful to the LMDC for their support to help realize the dream of creating a performing arts center in Lower Manhattan that will serve the local community, New Yorkers from all five boroughs, New Jersey residents, and visitors from around the nation and the world. The LMDC has been key to this vital project since its inception when John Whitehead was the LMDC Chair.”

There will also be public meeting spaces and a plaza between the PAC and One World Trade Center, across from its future east side lobby. As of today, steel for the main building has been slow to rise, as most of the work is being done below street level, including concrete pours of the lower sub-floor, and steel components that support the underground entrance and exit to the garage floors below Greenwich Street. This is part of the World Trade Center’s Vehicle Security Center, with the main access point underneath Liberty Park. Recent screenshot images from Earthcam show the tangles of intricate steelwork that have been assembled to form the lower section of the site.

The site of the WTC performing arts center. Screenshot from Earthcam

The Performing Arts Center should rise next year, and will possibly top out in the latter half of 2019, due to its low height and large interior spaces that will house the theaters and performance halls. A large trio of diagonal trusses will be present on all four sides of the cube, as part of the structural system between the interior space and the marble facade. At night, the outside will be illuminated in a warm glow of light.

The Perelman Performing Arts Center is scheduled to be completed around 2021.