Downtown arts organizations are scrambling to beat Thursday’s deadline for submitting applications to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation for $35 million in cultural grants, cultural advocates say.

More than 100 nonprofit organizations are expected to apply to the city and state downtown development agency for grants derived from more than $20 billion in federal funds given to New York after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

By early spring, a five-member LMDC panel will recommend funding proposals for capital projects or programming south of Houston Street, with the goal of revitalizing cultural life in Lower Manhattan.

The president of the arts advocacy group the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Tom Healy, said public funding would act as a catalyst for many organizations seeking private donations. “I can’t even imagine who is not applying,” he said.

Groups said to be applying include Film Forum, WNYC, and the New Museum.

A spokesman for the LMDC, John Gallagher, said the development corporation’s staff receives about a dozen inquiries a day about the grants. He said he expects many applications to come in right before Thursday’s deadline.

Thus far the arts seem to have lost out in the collision of interests regarding downtown development.

The Drawing Center, a SoHo gallery, was originally slated to relocate to ground zero, but questions over potentially anti-American content led the organization to look elsewhere for a home. In November, the Drawing Center received $10 million from the LMDC, part of the $45 million that was initially earmarked for off-site cultural projects.

In September, Governor Pataki scrapped the idea of building an International Freedom Center at ground zero after the families of 9/11 victims complained about its planned content.

The city’s cultural affairs commissioner, Kate Levin, who also sits on the LMDC arts panel, said the conflicts over content that plagued the International Freedom Center and the Drawing Center were unlikely to come into play regarding the $35 million in grant money.

“Every time you give out money there are always people who want to quibble about how that happened, but the basic premise here, which is the revitalization of Lower Manhattan, is something everyone can agree on,” she said.

The artistic director of the SoHo Repertory Theater in TriBeCa, Daniel Aukin, said his group would file an application this week for between $2 million and $3 million to build a new stage. He said the group nearly went out of business after September 11, 2001, and that the grant would give the organization a sense of security.

“It gives us the opportunity to establish ourselves permanently in this neighborhood we’ve been in for 30 years,” he said. “This feels like it might be more of an opportunity to make the case for smaller, nonprofit organizations like ourselves, that have always made this neighborhood, historically, a neighborhood for bold artistic organizations.”

But for some, more than four years of waiting has been too long for the much-needed financial boost. The executive director of 3-Legged Dog Theater and Media Group, Kevin Cunningham, said his was the only cultural organization physically destroyed by the terrorist attacks. Since then he has sought private funding to rebuild his theater, a $4.6 million project, and has received only an estimated $13,000 from the government.

Mr. Cunningham has applied to the LMDC for $1.6 million to finish the construction of two theaters, a rehearsal space, and offices on Greenwich Street.

“It would have been good if it came in 2002. We want to get started. We want to get life going again down here,” Mr. Cunningham said.

Recently Mr. Cunningham has been contacted for advice by arts organizations on the Gulf Coast that were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

“I told them, get ready for a long timeline. And use your networks, because the government is not gong to be there with you – at least on time,” he said.

The LMDC grants will total nearly the amount of annual grants that the New York State Council on the Arts distributes statewide. They are roughly a quarter of the annual expense budget of the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs.