Funding for the planned World Trade Center performing arts complex in New York has taken another major step forward, with the award of a multi-million dollar grant from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The grant of US$89m (€78.11m, £70.11) to the Ronald O.Perelman Center for the Performing Arts takes funding raised to 82 per cent of its total construction costs. Major work is due to begin in 2019, with opening slated for 2021.

Maggie Boepple, president of the Center, expressed deep gratitude for the grant, which will "help realise 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".

Designed by New York-based REX Architecture, the cube-shaped venue will host performances of theatre, dance, music, opera and film across three flexible auditoria that can be merged together in 11 different configurations.

Speaking exclusively to Attractions Management last year, lead architect Joshua Prince-Ramus said the venue will be one of the most innovative of its kind ever built and would be a "really extraordinary tool for the creation of new art".

The building will be wrapped in translucent veined marble and laminated with insulated glass, allowing natural light to illuminate the interior during the day and transforming it into a glowing lantern by night, with the silhouettes of human movement inside subtly reflecting the creative energy of the performance.

Prince-Ramus, who lived just four blocks away from the World Trade Center on 9/11, said: "To design a performing arts facility with multiple venues in it on probably the most hallowed ground in the US, as an American, is an architectural honour and dream all wrapped into one."