A 100,000-square-foot complex in New York with a view of Central Park is to include a 1,100-seat theatre, a 600-seat performance atrium, a 140-seat jazz cafe and a jazz Hall of Fame. It will also house two rehearsal studios and a classroom, all wired for recording, broadcast and webcast.

“Everything is going to be integrated. The relationship between one space and another, the relationship between the audience and the musicians will be one fluid motion because that’s how our music is,” Marsalis said of the $103 million center to be built at Columbus Circle.

The jazz venues will be part of the $1.6 billion, 2.5 million-square-foot complex called Columbus Center. It will double as a space for opera, dance and the Lincoln Center Festival in the summer.

Marsalis is the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, which will be based at the new complex, slated to open in 2003.

The structure, on the site of the New York Coliseum now being razed, also is to house the headquarters of AOL-Time Warner, stores, condominiums, a garage and a hotel.