New York-based architecture and design firm Kostow Greenwood Architects has been selected to design SteelStax, a performing arts, broadcast, educational, and event complex in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The facility will be located on the 126-acre brownfield site that was once home to the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

Scheduled to break ground in 2009, the project will feature a new 46,000-square-foot broadcast center, a 90,000-square-foot performing arts center (which will incorporate elements from an existing furnace building, built in 1889), and a 22,000-square-foot events center, located in a former foundry.

The broadcast center will be home to WLVT PBS Channel 39 and include three television studios and a green roof planted with indigenous plant material. The roof will offer views of iconic blast furnaces. Outdoor footpaths will allow passersby views of broadcasts in session while an elevated moon-shaped landscape will feature seating for outdoor film screenings.

garden plaza will connect to the performing arts center, which will serve four arts organizations, a vocational school, and ArtsQuest, a non-profit arts and cultural center.

A pedestrian pathway, embedded with steel rails and archways, will lead visitors to the events center featuring open gallery space for exhibitions and a catering kitchen for events. A courtyard space will allow outdoor performances and café dining.

ArtsQuest, WLVT PBS Channel 39, and Sands Bethworks, along with several nonprofit organizations, will provide funding for the project.

Kostow Greenwood Architects specializes in and media-facility, performing arts, and theater designs for clients including CNN, NBC, MTV, and HBO.