The Dia Art Foundation has decided to return to its original site in Chelsea and construct new exhibition space at a property it owned at 545 West 22nd Street.

In a press release today, Philippe Vergne, its director, said that "In keeping with the organization's historical commitment to in-depth support of ambitious projects, the space will provide a New York City location for commissioned artworks. It will also house exhibitions; long-term installations; public programs including readings, lectures, and symposia; and performances."

"With the new site," he continued, "Dia will again serve as an institutional anchor for the contemporary-art neighborhood that it pioneered in the late 1980s and that is now home to a rich mix of art galleries, theaters, public spaces, and diverse nonprofit organizations." "We want to build a 'dream house' for artists," he said.

Dia has strong roots in Chelsea, beginning in the 1970s, when it provided Robert Whitman with a building, now The Kitchen, to use as a studio and performance space. From 1986 to 2004, Dia Center for the Arts, which led the radical transformation of Chelsea from a declining warehouse district into an international destination for contemporary art, operated at 548 West 22nd Street. Dia's Manhattan-based programs have been highly respected for their depth, influence, and innovation.

Dia had closed its space at 545 West 22nd Street in 2004, which needed renovation and was determined then to be inadequate for its programming.

"Early planning for the building has begun, and the architecture and scale of the edifice - which will provide a utilitarian space designed for the experience of art - are being determined. The project represents the first time in its 35-year history that Dia has elected to construct a new building, rather than to re-use an existing one," the release said.

A nonprofit institution founded in 1974, Dia Art Foundation is renowned for initiating, supporting, presenting, and preserving art projects including Robert Smithson's famed "Spiral Jetty" and Water De Maria's "The Lightning Field."

An article by Carol Vogel in The New York Times quoted Nathalie de Gunzburg, the chairperson of Dia, that "it's keeping our roots yet at the same time trying to evolve." She said that after exploring for new locations from the Bowery to Harlem, the foundation's board decided that the answer was "right in front of us."

The foundation planned to open a museum at the entrance to the High Line, the abandoned elevated railway line that has now become a public park, the article noted, adding that its board "scrapped that project in 2006 after losing its longtime director, Michael Govan, who left to oversee the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and its board chairman and biggest benefactor, Leonard Riggio. (The Whitney Museum of American Art is now planning a satellite space at that downtown site.)"

The article said that the foundation's next director, Jeffrey Weiss, tried to find a new site but resigned after nine months and it quoted its new director, Philippe Vergne, as stating that the return to West 22nd Street was "the most logical solution." The article added that "Mr. Vergne said Dia had no plans to hire a star architect or hold a formal design competition." "'No bling,' Mr. Vergne said, 'rather a utilitarian envelope for art, a place where we can bring living artists back into the fold,'" the article said.

The foundation was very influential in the transformation of Chelsea into a center of art galleries when it moved there from SoHo in 1986. It has a permanent art collection in Beacon, New York in a museum that was formerly an abandoned 1929 box factory.

The foundation also maintains art installations in SoHo, New Mexico and Bridgehampton, New York and in 2007 entered a collaboration with the Hispanic Society of America at its facility on Broadway and 155th Street.