Frank O. Gehry to Design Ground Zero Theater

Frank O. Gehry's selection as architect for the new performing arts center at Ground Zero in New York delights museum officials in South Mississippi who picked him in 1998 to design the new $29 million Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art.

"I think all the publicity that comes with Frank Gehry has an impact that's bound to help us," said Jerry O'Keefe, museum building fund chairman and the man who seeded the new Ohr museum with a $1 million donation.

"I think it's really spectacular to know that he's going to do this and it will add more importance to the work he's doing right here in our little town."

A New York Times story on Wednesday called Gehry "a celebrity architect who has been notably absent from perhaps the most closely watched architectural site in the world."

It was designing a building for dance and theater that attracted him to the project, Gehry told the newspaper. He did not enter the competition for the memorial to those who died when terrorists struck the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

The arts center he will design was originally expected to cost from $200 million to $300 million.

Museum supporter Bruce Nourse said Gehry's new job "further validates the confidence we have had in the success of Biloxi's Frank Gehry-designed museum. We've always said the opening of (our) museum is going to be an e