New York ? The New York City Opera is in talks to abandon its cavernous home at Lincoln Center for a new building to be constructed nearby on the site of the former American Red Cross New York headquarters.

A. & R. Kalimian Realty bought the site this month for about $72 million and met recently with officials from the opera and the Department of City Planning to discuss the project, The New York Times reported in Friday editions.

“We have been in discussions about this project, as we have about others,” Paul Kellogg, the opera’s general and artistic director, told the paper. “Nothing has been determined one way or another about this project.”

The plan calls for the new opera facility to be below a residential tower a few blocks from Lincoln Center. The cost has not been determined.

City Opera has been trying for years to leave its current home, the New York State Theater, which has been criticized for having acoustics ill-suited to an opera company. The opera’s lease on the State Theater runs through 2014, and it would have to fulfill its financial obligations unless a replacement occupant is found.