Kennedy Center board votes to close main building

The Kennedy Center’s board voted Thursday to close the arts complex’s main building for up to two years of renovations and to put President Donald Trump’s name back on its facade, setting up another test of a federal judge’s order that had blocked both moves.

The board voted 20 to 3 after an almost two-hour Zoom meeting to rename the building “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump” and the physical location “President Donald J. Trump Plaza,” NBC News reported, citing a person who attended the meeting and another person familiar with it. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick proposed the name change, according to NBC News. Trump, who appointed himself chairman of the board last year, joined the call for several minutes.

The plan would shut the Kennedy Center’s main building while keeping the Reach, a 2019 addition to the campus, open for limited programming and as an active memorial to President John F. Kennedy. That structure is intended to help the board comply with U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper’s May order requiring the center to remain a memorial to Kennedy.

The three votes against the proposal came from ex officio members of Congress: Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash.

“This latest development is a transparent effort to circumvent the Court’s ruling, and flies in the face of the statutes that Congress passed,” Beatty said in a statement. “I will continue to fight for this treasured national monument.”

Cooper temporarily blocked the board’s earlier plan to close the center for two years after it voted unanimously in March to proceed with renovations. He wrote that board members had not received “sufficient information” to make a well-considered decision and said the initial closure decision appeared “ill-informed and seemingly preordained.” He also ordered Trump’s name removed from the building, saying only Congress had authority to change the institution’s name. The center removed the name in June and is appealing the decision.

“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” Cooper wrote in May.

The board’s new decisions remain subject to review by Cooper. The Kennedy Center has until next week to submit its plan to the judge, who will consider whether the board conducted sufficient due diligence before voting.

According to NPR, the approved renovation plan is described as a $250 million project that includes structural repairs, new marble floors, nearly $12 million in acoustical improvements and the temporary relocation of the famed eight-foot bronze bust of Kennedy from the main foyer. NPR reported that the main campus would reopen in summer 2028 under the plan. The New York Times first reported details of the proposal and potential name change, according to The Guardian and NPR.

The closure plan creates uncertainty for the National Symphony Orchestra, the Kennedy Center’s chief tenant, which has performed there since the early 1970s. NBC News reported that the orchestra has been searching for other venues because the center’s Concert Hall would not be available. The Reach would allow some ticketed events to continue, including some orchestra performances.

The Kennedy Center’s future has been contested for months as Trump and a board largely made up of his allies seek to reshape the institution. Former Rep. Joseph Kennedy III, a grandnephew of President Kennedy, said in a statement last year that the center “is a living memorial to a fallen president and named for President Kennedy by federal law. It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says.”