The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York is to construct a new museum building in downtown Manhattan, with work commencing in May 2011.

Situated in the Meatpacking District on Gansevoort Street between West Street and the High Line (a linear park created on the route of an old railway track), the six-storey, 195,000sq ft (18,116sq m) building - designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano - will provide the Whitney with essential new space for its collection, exhibitions, and education and performing arts programmes.

Fundraising for the structure has already reached US$372m (£257m, €304m), 63 per cent of the museum's US$590m (£407,6m, €481.6m) target. The total project budget is US$680m (£470m, €555m), which includes US$230m (£159m, €188m) for the endowment, as well as construction and land costs.

Adam D. Weinberg, Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney Museum, said: "Breaking ground next spring is the crucial next step in the evolution of our downtown museum, one which will ensure that the Whitney can boldly realise its mission to be the defining museum of 20th- and 21st-century American art.

The new museum is expected to open to the public in 2015.