The Philharmonic and Lincoln Center said Monday they had raised $500 million of the $550 million needed for the project, up from $360 million committed when the earlier timetable was announced in December 2019. “Once the closure of the Hall was mandated because of COVID, we realized the Phil would be out of work for an extensive period of time and it made sense to accelerate the construction,” Lincoln Center chair Katherine Farley said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It also gave us an opportunity to be part of New York’s economic recovery, because this project and is going to create 6,000 jobs.”