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The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. is planning to put as much as $300 million into the new cultural centers to be built at Ground Zero.
The money will be raised by the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, the nonprofit organization created in July to gather funds for financing the construction and care of the Ground Zero memorial. The foundation will also take control of the cultural centers from the LMDC, overseeing the construction and acting as a landlord for the smaller arts groups that don't take an equity stake in the buildings.
The funds will be used for the shells of the buildings and to help the resident arts organizations with the capital costs for their buildouts. Last month, officials from the LMDC, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts chose 15 finalists out of 113 cultural institutions that submitted letters of interest to move to the site.
The groups that made the short list are now scrambling to turn in new, more formal proposals and come up with pledges from donors to show they will have the financial wherewithal to meet their obligations. The news that there will be some funding will be welcome to the city's arts community, which has been under the impression that the groups chosen for the site would have to raise all the money alone.
The final selections for the site, which could emerge as the highest-profile cultural center in the world, will be made by...