Kennedy Center Board Votes to Shut Main Building, Add Trump Name
The board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted Thursday to close the Washington, D.C., arts complex’s main building for a two-year renovation and to reinstate President Donald Trump’s name on the venue’s facade, according to NPR. The 20-3 vote directly challenges federal court rulings that had blocked the closure and ordered Trump’s name removed.
The board approved changing the building’s name to “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump” and the physical location to “President Donald J. Trump Plaza,” as NBC News reported. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick proposed the name change during the nearly two-hour Zoom meeting, which was not open to the public. Trump, who appointed himself chairman of the board, joined the call for several minutes.
The three dissenting votes came from ex-officio congressional members: Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.).
A Direct Challenge to the Courts
The decisions will be subject to approval by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who had previously ruled that only Congress has authority to change the institution’s name and had temporarily blocked the planned closure. In his May ruling, Cooper wrote that “none of the board members had sufficient information in advance of the March 16 meeting to make a well-considered decision to close the center.”
In a statement emailed to NPR, Beatty condemned the vote as “a transparent effort to circumvent the Court’s ruling, and flies in the face of the statutes that Congress passed.” Her attorneys, Norm Eisen of Democracy Defenders Action and Nathaniel Zelinsky of Washington Litigation Group, called the vote “more of the same, and a show of blatant disrespect to the courts.”
A federal appeals court had also denied Trump’s request in July to halt the removal of his name, ruling that he failed to prove the center would be “irreparably injured” without it.
The $250 Million Renovation Plan
The board voted to close the center’s main building while keeping The REACH, a 2019 addition, open for limited programming and as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy. According to the plan, the $250 million project includes structural repairs, new marble floors, nearly $12 million in “acoustical improvements,” and a plan to temporarily move the eight-foot bronze bust of Kennedy from the main foyer. The main campus would reopen in summer 2028.
As The Guardian reported, the center has until next week to share its plan with Judge Cooper, who will review whether the board carried out sufficiently thorough due diligence. It remains unclear whether the construction management firm named in the plans, JLL, has experience with arts venues featuring unamplified performances.
A Legacy of Turmoil
The vote marks the latest chapter in a saga that began in February 2025, when Trump fired the Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees and appointed himself as chair, filling the board with allies. In December 2025, the board voted unanimously to add Trump’s name to the venue, renaming it “The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
The move triggered widespread backlash. The Washington National Opera left in January 2026, and the National Symphony Orchestra has been pushed to “the deepest financial crisis in its recent history,” according to reports. Ticket sales plummeted, and scores of staffers and administrators departed.
Trump’s name was removed from the building on June 13, 2026, after Judge Cooper’s ruling. A large tarp has covered the building’s entrance since then.
Whistleblower Allegations and Legal Setbacks
The controversy has been compounded by whistleblower allegations. In July, Sen. Whitehouse released a complaint alleging that Trump’s allies mismanaged renovations, including painting gold columns white (resulting in rusting), ripping up newly installed bathroom tiles because Trump “didn’t like the color,” and setting aside contracting rules “to hit the President’s deadlines, telling staff, ‘We’ll deal with the lawsuits later,’” as Al Jazeera reported.
The center also suffered a legal setback this week when a D.C. superior court judge ordered it to pay jazz musician Chuck Redd more than $252,000 in legal fees after the center sued him for canceling his Christmas Eve performance in protest of the renaming, according to NPR. The center intends to appeal.
What’s Next
The Kennedy Center’s decisions now rest with Judge Cooper, who will determine whether the board conducted adequate due diligence before voting. The White House, meanwhile, remains bullish. “Under President Trump’s bold leadership, the Kennedy Center is on its way to becoming the finest cultural institution anywhere in the world,” White House spokeswoman Liz Huston told the BBC.
Critics see the vote as part of a broader pattern of Trump’s efforts to reshape Washington’s cultural landmarks. As Beatty put it: “I will continue to fight for this treasured national monument.”
For the arts community, the stakes are existential. The National Symphony Orchestra’s future remains uncertain, and the center’s programming has been drastically reduced. Whether the board’s latest decisions survive judicial scrutiny will determine not just the fate of a building, but the future of one of America’s most important cultural institutions.