NEW YORK CITY-One of the more overlooked components of the World Trade Center complex, a proposed performing arts center, has gotten a $100-million shot in the arm thanks to a recommendation by a Lower Manhattan Development Corp. committee and an agreement announced Wednesday by city and state officials to set up a fund. The money will be allocated from a pool of federal funds that have been directed to rebuilding Downtown.

“Our collective desire to put $100 million towards the development of the Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center site makes clear that the cultural venue is a critical part of the ongoing revitalization of Lower Manhattan,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg says in a statement. Next on the agenda will be figuring out how to apportion the remainder of the approximately $200-million federal allocation among various Downtown infrastructure upgrades and economic development, transportation, cultural and community projects. The LMDC will vote on the plan at its next meeting in November.

The PAC has been part of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s master plan for redevelopment at Ground Zero since 2004. At that time, the Joyce Theater was selected to be a prime tenant in the arts center, and is currently the only one committed to it, with others having bowed out over the years.

In an interview with the New York Times, Julie Menin, chair of Manhattan Community Board 1, said the LMDC should invite other arts organizations to be a part of the PAC. “It can’t just be the Joyce,” Menin told the Times Wednesday. “We need major world-class cultural organizations that are going to bring people from all over the world. We need to incentivize the private sector to come behind the performing arts center.”

Architect Frank Gehry is slated to design the center, with a 1,000-seat theater, a secondary theater, rehearsal spaces, classrooms, a public cafe, outdoor plazas and administrative space. Gehry’s design was also selected in ’04.

It’s not yet clear where the balance of the money to build the center will come from, and the PAC’s exact location has also been a question mark. The ’04 master plan calls for it to be built near the north side of the WTC site near the intersection of Vesey and Greenwich streets, a location favored by both the Bloomberg administration and CB1. However, given the complex interdependence of the trade center’s components, work on the PAC couldn’t begin until at least 2015, when the temporary PATH station is demolished in favor of the Santiago Calatrava-designed terminal that’s slated to be built in its place.

According to published reports, LMDC chairman Avi Schick in 2008 suggested moving the PAC to the site of the Fulton Street Transit Center a block to the east. The transit center project at the time was stalled and had run out of funds. More recently, the LMDC in June 2009 proposed relocating the PAC to the south side of Ground Zero, on the site of the former Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty St. With deconstruction work on the heavily damaged and contaminated office tower now proceeding apace, work on the arts center could theoretically begin within months once 130 Liberty is finally dismantled. No final decision has been reached on the PAC’s exact location.