Lincoln Center Is Getting A $335M Makeover — See Renderings

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is getting a major $335 million renovation, and, on Monday, the project designers released the renderings to the public for the first time.

The project will add a 2,000-seat outdoor performance venue, a park with an interactive water feature, and remove an obstructive wall along Amsterdam Avenue, among other changes, Lincoln Center officials said.

The renovation aims to make the iconic campus, which already houses 11 venues spanning music, dance, opera, film, and theater, more accessible, modern and welcoming, Lincoln Center officials said.

"This re-envisioning of Lincoln Center’s west face is a watershed moment," Mariko Silver, the president and CEO of Lincoln Center, said. "With this new park, we invite the joy and pride of New Yorkers and arts lovers everywhere to flourish at Lincoln Center."

The renovation will primarily take place on the west side of the campus, along Amsterdam Avenue and at Damrosch Park, Lincoln Center officials said.

The Lincoln Center's Amsterdam Avenue wall will be removed and replaced with greenery and more welcoming plaza-like transition spaces from the street into Lincoln Center’s campus for pedestrians and concert-goers alike.

These spaces include street-level gardens with spaces to sit and relax, as well as expanded sidewalks between 62nd and 65th Streets, Lincoln Center officials said.

“The reimagining of Damrosch Park is more than a physical transformation — it’s a cultural reconnection to Lincoln Center’s west side neighborhood," said Walter Hood, the architect whose firm, Hood Design Studio, designed the project.

On its west side, Lincoln Center is next to the New York City Housing Authority's Amsterdam Houses, as well as several high schools.

Before Lincoln Center was built in 1959, a neighborhood called San Juan Hill, home to many Black and Latino New Yorkers, stood in its place.

"The project celebrates and honors the communities that once called San Juan Hill home by acknowledging its rich, layered cultural history and enduring cultural impact. The new park and gardens gracefully invite the community to reclaim and reimagine the space through play, performance, art, and the everyday," Hood said.

The project was also designed by architecture firms Weiss/Manfredi and Moody Nolan.

The new park will also include groves with spaces for sitting and gathering, a lawn with flowering trees and a kid-friendly water feature, as well as a terrace and stage area for smaller-scale community performances, Lincoln Center officials said.

In talks since 2023, the project was designed with feedback from all kinds of New Yorkers, including local neighbors, public housing residents, community groups and students, Lincoln Center officials said.

“I’m grateful to Lincoln Center for its efforts to ensure the campus, its open space, and programming will be accessible to and representative of residents,” City Councilmember Gale Brewer said.

So far, the performing arts organization has raised around 65 percent of the funds needed, including a $75 million gift from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Lincoln Center officials said.

Lincoln Center said construction would begin in spring 2026 and finish by spring 2028.

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