NEW YORK | Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center (WTC)

[NYguy]

^ The memorial pavilion or the museum itself could also be building number 6.

Originally Posted by THE BIG APPLE

I know Downtown NEVER had a Performing Arts center, before I was just stating it that way, to express the point of 'Is there a need for a Performing Arts Center?'.

To say that there is no need for something simply because there was never one before is contradictory in itself. Think it through.

[NYguy]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj

WTC Arts Center Advances

March 8, 2012
By JENNIFER MALONEY

Roughly two months after a board was named to create a performing-arts center at the World Trade Center, the institution has passed two important milestones: It has been granted nonprofit status and hired its first staffer to help bring the institution into being. The new hire is Maggie Boepple, a former president of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and government affairs consultant for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and other agencies.

Ms. Boepple's most urgent task is helping the board give shape to the institution's mission so it can move forward on a design for the building. A conceptual design had been done by Frank Gehry.

The focal point of the arts center is to be a 1,000-seat theater designed for dance, which would provide a venue for performing groups that can't take on the financial risk of trying to fill the city's larger theaters. Other elements of the building, including performance spaces such as a black box or outdoor amphitheater, haven't been finalized and will depend on the type of programming the board decides to offer. Theater, dance, and music require different design parameters.

Time is running short. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is currently building the foundation of a PATH station that will be beneath the arts center, Mr. Daniels said.

Ms. Boepple represents Mayor Michael Bloomberg on the board of the American Museum of Natural History and is a trustee of the South Street Seaport Museum. Before her tenure at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, she advised London's transport commissioner on the hand-over of control of the London Tube from the British government to the city of London.

The design should include a cafe that draws the public in, and should be beautiful to look down on from the office towers above, she said.

"It has to be respectful of the site and it has to be so…exciting that we get everyone wanting to come," she said.

[chris123678]

Honestly, I could see the performing arts center being the new 6 world trade center, but here's a question, where will it be located? From renderings, it seemed to be next to 1wtc, but it looks as if now, there is no room.
Can Anybody clarify

[Roadcruiser1]

Originally Posted by chris123678

Honestly, I could see the performing arts center being the new 6 world trade center, but here's a question, where will it be located? From renderings, it seemed to be next to 1wtc, but it looks as if now, there is no room.
Can Anybody clarify

There is room. Those buildings are temporarily. When One World Trade Center is completed by 2013 they will be dismantled for the Performing Arts Center. Once that is done then it will rise. It is being designed by Frank Gehry.

[NYC GUY]

Originally Posted by chris123678

Honestly, I could see the performing arts center being the new 6 world trade center, but here's a question, where will it be located? From renderings, it seemed to be next to 1wtc, but it looks as if now, there is no room.
Can Anybody clarify

Well where the PAC would be is where the temporary path station is. So i'm going to assume that when the hub is completed in 2014 they will start getting rid of the Path station.
Not an official rendering.


This is Frank Gehry's design.

[IMBY]

Is there still time for someone like Calatrava to design it and it become a major tourist attraction in itself?

[aquablue]

Originally Posted by IMBY

Is there still time for someone like Calatrava to design it and it become a major tourist attraction in itself?

Nah, Ghery is doing it. We don't want this to look like the complex in Valencia with too many Calatrava buildings

Let's hope we get a better design than that.

[NYguy]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/m...AJ2q3LgUypTjpK

Planned WTC arts center gets boost




From ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 31, 2013

A performing arts center planned for the World Trade Center site has received a financial boost that improves chances of the languishing project to open in four years.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. on Thursday approved $1 million to hire staff and develop building plans.

With the approval, the center could open as planned in 2017.

The LMDC had withheld the seed money in September, citing concerns over the project's cost and fundraising ability.

A board of directors was named to the center last year.

The Frank Gehry-designed center would include a theater for contemporary dance.

The LMDC already has committed $155 million for construction. The total cost is estimated at $450 million.

[Crawford]

Finally. It's nice to see this moving forward with some real progress.

Can't wait for construction to start.

[NYguy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/ar...bUXq21GXMY/BQ&

Plans for Ground Zero Arts Hub Shift Again

By ROBIN POGREBIN
March 26, 2013

When a performing arts center was first planned for the former World Trade Center site, four cultural organizations were chosen after a high-profile competition to anchor a complex that would make ground zero a new and vibrant cultural destination.

But over the years each of the organizations has fallen away. The International Freedom Center — which was to explore human rights — was scuttled by Gov. George E. Pataki for attracting “too much controversy.” The Drawing Center, stung by criticism that some of its exhibitions had been “anti-American,” stayed in SoHo and renovated. And New York City decided that the Signature Theater would be too expensive, so that company built a new home on Theater Row instead.

That left only the Joyce Theater, which was to make the proposed center a home for dance as the reigning tenant and to call it the International Dance Center. Now, quietly, the plans have changed yet again. The performing arts center will instead be a multidisciplinary space that includes theater, music and film, as well as dance, said Maggie Boepple, its president. While the Joyce will retain a role at the site, dance will just be one part of many different kinds of programming.

City officials say the adjustment was necessary if the arts center were to be a viable enterprise in Lower Manhattan. “The Joyce can only use it so many weeks of the year,” said Julie Menin, the former chairwoman of Community Board 1, who serves on the arts center board. “It always made sense to have more than one cultural tenant.”

To lower the construction costs the board has eliminated some features from the center, like classrooms. More critically the number of stages has been reduced from the four that were originally called for — three for the Signature and one for the Joyce — to a main stage and a 200-seat flexible space.

But even those plans remain in flux. The main stage had originally been touted as a 1,000-seat house that would fill a niche in a city that lacks theaters of that size. But now that plan is no longer definite because the board must determine whether it can afford to fit an auditorium that large on a site with limited square footage. “There will be a whole new redesign because we really changed the building,” Ms. Boepple said. “One of the things we’re looking at is whether a 1,000-seat theater is possible.”

Mr. Gehry, in a telephone interview, said he continued to roll with the punches. “The other program was grand and big, and it seemed in scale with the place,” he said. “We’ve got a smaller program now because of finances. I don’t take time to look backwards. We’ll make something out of it that works.”

[phoenixboi08]

might have been better, in hindsight, to have combined the Museum and the theater into one [vertically] large complex.

[Hypothalamus]

Tribeca Trib:

New Team Said to Establish Vision for WTC Performance Center
By CARL GLASSMAN
Posted Jan. 07, 2014


Maggie Boepple, president of the planned performing arts center at the World Trade Center, speaks to Community Board 1's Planning Committee. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

It will be years before the curtain rises on a performing arts center at the World Trade Center. But the real planning has finally begun.

Clouded in financial and political uncertainty for nearly a decade, the center now has an “A-team” assembled to make it happen, said its president, Maggie Boepple.

The performing arts center would be located 60 feet from 1 World Trade Center and in the approximate location of today's temporary PATH station.

Speaking to a Community Board 1 com­mittee in early January, Boepple said an artistic director has been hired along with other theater consultants. And “one of the world’s most brilliant artistic directors and filmmakers” is now on its board of directors.

Boepple declined to identify them.

In early 2013, following months of uncertainty over the Cuomo administration’s support for the center, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. released the $1 million Boepple needed to hire consultants to determine the project’s costs and begin a planning process.

David Langford, former chief financial officer of the Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, will be the general manager, in charge of the center’s business side.

Boepple also revealed the proposed name for the institution: The World Center for the Performing Arts.

She said the center would be technologically “smart” and referred to the possibility of simulcasting performances from its stage.

“Since it’s going to be a smart theater, that means very connected,” she said.

“We take the use of the word ‘world’ very seriously.”

While performances may be seen by audiences far from New York City, the number of seats inside the theater will be more modest than expected.

“We’ve gotten away from having one big 1,000-seat theater,” Boepple said. “We’re now very convinced that what we’ve come up with will be good for the work that goes on there.”

While declining to say how many seats are being contemplated for the theater (originally there was to be a smaller venue in addition to the 1,000-seat auditorium), Boepple acknowledged that Frank Gehry’s showy design concept for the center was introduced prematurely.

“The more I thought about this, the more I realized we were getting it backwards,” she said. “The architect was in place. Great. We didn’t know what was going to go inside the building. You can’t design a performing arts center without having a real notion of what’s going to happen inside.”

Boepple spoke of a café that would be a kind of cultural hubas well as other a­t­tractions beyond performances. “There are things going on all day, rehearsals, noontime events the community can come to. So the design is going to reflect that.”

Over the past few months, Boepple said, people in the performing arts community were “polled” about what should go in the center.

“We have put together a vision that the board has accepted,” she said, “and it will allow us to work initially with the theater designers to design a space that works for everybody.”

That vision, Boepple noted, is ex­pected to be revealed in the next three months. She said there is too much work left to be done on the site to predict when it will be completed. The new PATH station must open and the temporary station­—where the performance center will be built—must be demolished.

Boepple also would not say how much the center is expected to cost, only that it will be less than previous estimates, which ranged from $300 million to $700 million.

“The numbers you heard before were unmanageable in terms of raising money,” she said, “because we want a lot of the money to go into the program and make this a very exciting place to be.”

“You can have grand architecture, people will go, ‘Ooh, aah’ and come once,” she added. “You have to have great stuff going on to get them back.”

The performing arts center would be located 60 feet from 1 World Trade Center and in the approximate location of today's temporary PATH station.

[De Minimis NY]

Once the WTC site is complete, the buildings are filled with tenants, the museam is open and the memorial has become one of the premier tourist destinations in the city, this space is going to become much more attractive to performing arts groups and likely more capable of attracting the funding it needs to be built out to its full potential. It'll be a shame if they put up a compromised design in order to get it built now and we end up stuck with something bland and uninspiring in such a prominent location.

I'd rather see them keep it a hole in the ground for an extra five years and wait until they can build something on par with everything else going up around the memorial.

[Hypothalamus]

London Director to Draft Arts Vision for Ground Zero
By ROBIN POGREBINFEB. 12, 2014


One concept for an arts center, with theaters on the second floor. Charcoalblue

Executives developing a performing arts center at ground zero have hired a temporary artistic director from the Young Vic theater in London, one of a series of steps to be announced Thursday to advance a project that has long faced political and logistical hurdles.

The new director, David Lan, who will continue as artistic director at the Young Vic, is part of a team recently brought in by the center as it refines its plans, which now include developing its own productions and revising the design for the building, by the architect Frank Gehry. Officials said that it had been a mistake to design the theater before the programming was determined and that they were essentially starting over.

Officials are also still grappling with what is perhaps the most critical issue for the project — how to raise the construction money, several hundred million dollars, by most estimates — although they said they were optimistic about the prospects.

“Realistically, we couldn’t start raising money until the programming was set,” said Julie Menin, a member of the institution’s board. “I believe very strongly we will be able to go out and raise funds for this in the private sector.”
....

Arts center officials said it was too early to say what construction might cost; original estimates put the price tag at $300 million to $700 million. Reached by phone, Mr. Gehry said he had not been in touch with the arts center for some time. “Radio silence,” he said. “I don’t know what their priorities are. They haven’t talked to me, so I don’t know.”

Ms. Boepple said the center does not need a full-time artistic director for now because it is not expected to open until 2018 or 2019. Its site is occupied by a temporary PATH station pending completion of a new transportation hub in Lower Manhattan.
....

[sparkling]

WTC Arts Center Still Searching for an Architect

Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Evan Bindelglass

The World Trade Center Performing Arts Center officially scrapped Frank Gehry's design for the venue, stalling the already stalled project. Little has happened since then, but on Monday, officials from the center told Community Board 1's Planning Committee that they are close to being able to move forward again, having narrowed the search for a new architect to three firms.

Maggie Boepple, president of the WTC Performing Arts Center, made clear that the split from Gehry and his controversial design was "amicable." She only said that no contract could be reached. In terms of a new design team, they have narrowed the prospective firms from 50 to three, and the board will make a decision "soon" and choose an executive architect to oversee the project.

Boepple also said that project is now known as "PAC WTC," with PAC pronounced like "pack." This is less wordy (and less stuff) than "The World Center for the Performing Arts," but it's still kind of terrible. However, they are open to offers to buy the naming rights, so it will probably just get worse from here.

While a building can't be built without a design, below grade design work has been completed, and construction will actually begin soon. The temporary PATH station currently occupies the site of the arts center, so significant work can't being until that's out of the way. Currently, Boepple projects a 2018 or 2019 opening for the center, though productions would be staged elsewhere prior to that to "whet whistles."

Lucy Sexton, the associate artistic director, gave details about the theater space, which she said she hoped would be a "theater of the world." She wants it to be a "producing house" because New York City can make its own great works, but also collaborate with world artists. There will be three theaters which she envisions being used for theater, musical theater, dance, and new opera. They will have 550, 350, and 150 seats each, but will be combinable for any number of experiences. Sexton wants it to be an "immersive theater."

David Lan, artistic director at the Young Vic in London (where he sells 96 percent of his tickets), will run things at PAC WTC, where Sexton said programming will be "artistically adventurous" and open to co-producing with other theaters, such as the Apollo. Lan has already done work across the East River at BAM.

Sexton wants it to be the "most digitally advances space in the countries" so it can connect with and display new work from the best artists.

Sexton sees the theater as a "connecting node" in the World Trade Center campus, and wants PAC WTC to be a "building that's alive all day." It will be open from 8 a.m. to 1 a.m. and have breakfast, lunch, and coffee options. Sexton sees it as a "place to land" and have a drink at the bar after the show or after work next door at One World Trade Center.

Boepple wants an audience that represents the community and said they will be sensitive to the nearby 9/11 Memorial, but she said, "The memorial is about what happened. We're about the future."

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2015/0..._architect.php

[Busy Bee]

Phew

Bullet. Dodged.

[Vertical_Gotham]

I find this post interesting as it was posted 10 weeks ago. How did the guy who made this know what the new look of 3 WTC w/ parapet would be then? Hmm.. Just wondering.




70 Story tower w/ perhaps the performing arts center at the base?

[Hemeroscopium]

[QUOTE=Vertical_Gotham;7061372]I find this post interesting as it was posted 10 weeks ago. How did the guy who made this know what the new look of 3 WTC w/ parapet would be then? Hmm.. Just wondering.

He just did what a good taste suggests:he removed these tacky spires!
Strangely he also added the radom on One...

[Streamliner]

Embattled World Trade Center Arts Center's Budget Halved
Zoe Rosenberg
Curbed NY
July 24, 2015

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2015/0...get_halved.php

The Performing Arts Center planned for the World Trade Center has been the subject of a few crippling blows, the most recent of which is a capsizing budget dealt by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. The committee that's in charge of overseeing the theater's development announced on Thursday that the project should cost no more than $200 million, which is about half of the funds originally allotted for the cultural attraction, the Times says. In September, officials for the project scrapped plans for Frank Gehry's tiered-box design in favor of instituting a design competition between 50 different firms. While the board of PAC WTC (as it's now known) says they've chosen a design for the project, the winning bid has not yet been announced to the public.

Former plans for the theater included three auditoriums seating 550, 350, and 150 people each. Under the reduced budget, the scale of the space may be brought down. "We can do a great building for $200 million—it has to be built," the PAC's president, Maggie Boepple, told the Times, "It will be smaller; there may be things that you might have liked to see, but that's how it is." Boepple says the center will likely still have three stages, but will not be as tall. Fundraising will also help lasso capital for the project.

[sparkling]

New Plan, Again, for WTC Performing-Arts Center
Latest iteration expected to be submitted at next board meeting of Lower Manhattan Development Corp.

JENNIFER SMITH
Oct. 21, 2015

The performing-arts center planned for the World Trade Center complex is shifting shape yet again, as its leaders work to deliver a slimmed-down project that can be built for roughly half the cost.

The newest iteration is expected to be presented later this fall, at the next board meeting of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the entity created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to oversee planning and rebuilding efforts there.

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