NEW YORK, NY.- Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. (LCPA) today announced the preliminary design for the Amsterdam Avenue side of its campus. Designed by Hood Design Studio (Landscape Architect), WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism (Design Architect) and Moody Nolan (Architect of Record), renderings were released for the first time today.

The project creates a new, world-class outdoor performance venue, community park spaces, and removes the wall that has separated Lincoln Center from Amsterdam Avenue—creating new, welcoming entrances along the complex’s west side. Responding to Lincoln Center and local communities’ desire to remove this wall at Damrosch Park, it will be replaced with a series of welcoming transition spaces from the street into Lincoln Center’s iconic campus. This extends greater welcome along the west of the performing arts center, while creating a more usable and inviting public park and performance venues that better meet the needs of artists and audiences today. Key features include:

• A welcoming entrance that dramatically opens up Lincoln Center’s Amsterdam Avenue face to neighbors approaching from the west

• A community park featuring a lawn, water feature, tree groves, and garden for public enjoyment

• A new, world-class performance venue that will greatly improve artist and audience experiences

The design balances the interventions made to the east side of Lincoln Center’s campus more than a decade ago, which created more welcoming outdoor spaces on the north and east of campus needed to deliver on its founding mission of the arts for all.

The new design incorporates extensive community feedback from an ongoing participatory process that began in 2023, which engaged thousands of local neighbors, NYCHA residents, community groups, students, and New Yorkers in discussions about how the western side of the campus is used and helped shape the design.

The $335 million capital campaign to support the transformation of the west side of Lincoln Center’s campus has raised 65% to-date, including generous support from the LCPA Board of Directors, who have championed and prioritized this important work from the beginning, as well as a $10 million commitment from the State of New York.

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) is a Founding Partner of this visionary process, with a $75 million grant that includes their initial support when the project began and builds upon their support of free programming throughout Summer for the City and the ongoing Legacies of San Juan Hill initiative.

A lead gift from The Starr Foundation provides invaluable support, anchoring the project which aligns with its longstanding support of the arts, culture, and vital New York communities.

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Lincoln Center West Initiative continues LCPA’s bold investments in the vibrancy of New York and helps ensure the arts are accessible to all—including the expansion of free artistic programs, the design and implementation of a Choose-What-You-Pay ticketing model, the reopening of the redesigned David Geffen Hall, and work with partners across the city—cultivating audiences’ sense of belonging through engagement with art from a range of cultural traditions. Construction is expected to begin in spring 2026 and to be completed by spring 2028.

This project is being undertaken in coordination with NYC Parks and NYC Department of Transportation. Damrosch Park is mapped city parkland maintained and operated by LCPA.

An Integrated Design for Greater Access Opening up to Amsterdam Avenue

By removing the wall at Damrosch Park and replacing it with inviting, human-scale spaces, the design— developed with input from NYC Parks— improves pedestrian circulation and prioritizes places for community use and relaxation. The design also seamlessly connects to the rest of the campus, including Josie Robertson Plaza, bringing the park to the street and introducing greater access and works of art in the park.

The new design eliminates the visual and physical barrier wall at Damrosch Park to create a more welcoming edge to the campus, to better serve close neighbors including residents of New York City Housing Authority campuses at Amsterdam Houses and Addition, students of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, and the five high schools at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Educational Complex.

Drawing inspiration from Lincoln Center’s Modernist architecture and landscape architecture, the design acknowledges the original campus’ symmetrical layout and formal edges by retaining a strong central axis and formal entry points, while introducing and sensitively integrating contemporary elements that accommodate accessibility, flexibility of use, and a variety of programmatic needs. The new design also incorporates materials, textures, colors, and scale of design elements found across the rest of Lincoln Center to create cohesion across campus.

Features of the reimagined entrances to the campus include:

• Sidewalk improvements, including an improved bus waiting area, an expanded sidewalk between 62nd and 65th Streets, increased greenery and shade along this edge, and more benches and lighting for an enhanced pedestrian experience

• Gardens at the new entrance to Damrosch Park, with a variety of spaces to sit, relax, and meet friends right at street level

• Art and light interventions within the concourse connecting Amsterdam Avenue to the 1 train subway entrance on Broadway (additional details forthcoming)

• New opportunities for seating at the West 65th Street corner of campus, where hundreds of area high school students engage with Lincoln Center every day

Community Park Spaces

The project introduces new community spaces centered around a water feature and expansive lawn space, surrounded by benches and movable chairs. Many of the geometries in the new park echo the historic geometries of Lincoln Center. For instance, the new lawn evokes the shape and scale of the Bandshell but re-interprets it as a space for community activity, rather than a physical barrier.

Throughout the participatory planning process, community members shared their desire for the spaces adjacent to Amsterdam Avenue to be flexible, graceful, and human-scale. New Yorkers from around the neighborhood and the city also felt strongly that the park should prioritize greenery, a water feature, increased shade, and sustainability—including 50% more trees than currently exist in the park.

Features of the community spaces include:

• A welcoming lawn surrounded by flowering trees and a water feature animated by mist, water jets, and reflection, which will be a community resource for relaxation and kids’ play

• Groves with spaces for sitting, gathering, and resting under the shade of trees

• An open terrace and performance area for smaller-scale community performances and family programming

Performance Stage and Plaza

The new performance venue—which includes a permanent theater structure and an inviting, open plaza for audience seating of up to approx. 2,000—will anchor the improved, world-class performance park to meet artistic and community needs.

The location and design of the new performance venue maintains the historic vista from Josie Robertson Plaza. The venue realizes the original intent of a theater in a park, by surrounding the new architecture with a veil of trees following the original grid design of the park.

The new size, orientation, and design of the stage, along with technological and infrastructural improvements, will greatly improve the artist and audience experience in Damrosch Park and mitigate sound impact outside the venue as it welcomes dance, theater, and music from around the world.

In community workshops, participants emphasized the importance of maintaining the park’s primary and historic use as a performance park. Damrosch Park has been an essential space for free, non-ticket holding public access since its inception. But, for the majority of the year, the predominantly hardscaped space is cut off from the contiguous community with limited greenspace and seating. This design will allow for more of the park to be used year-round, as the permanent venue will not require significant buildouts before and after each performance season. The configuration of the stage and its seating frame a plaza that also supports a variety of events and flexible uses.

When not used for performances, the plaza area can also serve as a recreation destination.

Theater features include:

• An open plaza that is accessible to the public

• A stage and theater oriented to bring audiences closer to performances and to allow for use of the park during shows

• An Artists’ Bar, adjacent to the theater, with food and beverage during performances and non-performance seasons

• A shaded overlook and grove with tiered seating for improved sightlines during performances, and daytime activation by the community outside of the performance season

A robust participatory design process

Throughout conceptualization and design, LCPA and its consultants have engaged thousands of New Yorkers through one-on-one interviews, focus groups, paper and online surveys, pop-up events, and workshops. These conversations have brought together neighbors, nearby NYCHA residents, advocates, community groups, staff and students from nearby educational institutions, elected officials, civic leaders, and other members of the New York City community, who shared their ideas, interests, questions, and feedback about the campus. This feedback shaped the design released today. Community members will continue to have opportunities to share ideas throughout the next phases of work.

This work included:

• 3,500+ survey responses, which gathered information from stakeholders, Lincoln Center audiences, and campus visitors about the wall along Amsterdam Avenue, the design of Damrosch Park, and the uses (both actual and desired) of the park and the campus' outdoor spaces

• 20+ pop-up events reaching 1,000+ people

• 5 community workshops attended by 470+ participants, in which stakeholders offered design ideas, reflections on access, and posed invaluable questions about the future of the campus

• 7 focus groups attended by 66 participants, including community stakeholders, preservation and design experts, accessibility groups, seniors, NYCHA residents, community organizations, school leadership, and members of Community Board 7

To provide broad access to each session, engagement materials were translated into Spanish and Simplified Chinese. During workshops, Spanish, Mandarin, and American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters were offered and assisted listening devices (ALDs) were made available. Engagement events were held both on weekdays and weekends, during daytime and evening hours, with childcare and refreshments made available during workshops. The next community open house will be on Thursday, May 22.

LCPA is still calling upon New Yorkers to get directly involved by offering feedback through LincolnCenter.org/series/planning-process and by participating in events on and off the Lincoln Center campus.