Kennedy Center Board Approves Plan to Immediately Close Venue
The decision came after a judge rejected the latest attempt to add Trump's name to the building. Kennedy Center Board Approves Plan to Immediately Close Venue Travis Bland
A plan to immediately close the Kennedy Center has been approved.
The Donald Trump-backed board of the performing arts venue voted Tuesday to shutter the center, citing necessary renovations and teetering financial prospects, according to NBC News . Trump, the board’s chair, virtually joined the closed-door meeting in which the vote took place, and spent much of his time criticizing trustee Rep. Joyce Beatty, who has challenged the board’s choices in court, and the judge who has blocked his name from being added to the façade again in a Tuesday ruling.
The planned closure is the latest developments in more than a year of turmoil and financial distress that came in the wake of the president’s coup of the institution and an ill-fated attempt to add his name to the title of the 55-year-old living monument to the slain national executive. However, the power of the plan to actually close down the center may be challenged.
The board’s choice to close the center’s main building was backed by dire messages about the building’s safety and condition in a packet that was distributed to trustees prior to the vote, with it noting that a chunk of the ceiling had fallen after a storm and corrosion was widespread, the Washington Post reported.
Before the board’s vote, allies of Trump in leadership at the center had spelled out the financial woes in a packet to trustees, saying that the venue faced “certain fiscal collapse” and would not be able to pay its bills in just a matter of weeks without the president’s fundraising ability, according to the Washington Post . But Trump wasn’t going to provide his means of raising funds unless his name went on the building. The board stopped short of voting again to put Trump’s name on the building Tuesday, electing instead to shutdown the center, NBC reported.
The board’s vote to close the center came shortly after federal Judge Christopher R. Cooper ruled against an August decision by the board to add “renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump” to the building, with the jurist saying, the Kennedy Center “cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing . . . The board resolution (in August) bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted,” as reported by the New York Times .
To opponents of Trump’s takeover, his name being put on the building accelerated a downfall in the center’s fortunes that his imposition began. In August, it was reported that the Kennedy Center had lost roughly $100 million in projected revenue and had a nearly $23 million deficit due to a decline in ticket sales and donations that came after Trump’s allies inscribed his name into the title of the memorial in late 2025. Judge Cooper undid the name change months later, ruling that only Congress can change the title of the center and kicking off a new effort by Trump’s handpicked leaders to get his name onto the building. Ex-officio board member Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat, brought the name challenge to the federal court and has successfully litigated to keep the center open. The new plan to close the center will likely face a similar court battle before Judge Cooper.
Trump’s opponents see the closure and proposed renovations as a stab by the president at putting his indelible mark on the center, much like he’s done with construction projects at the White House and the reflecting pool of the Washington Monument.
Trump installed himself as chairman of the Kennedy Center last year and set about remaking its board with his allies. With Trump at the helm, many performers canceled their engagements at the center, sending the venue in a downward spiral. Staffers were laid off and programing was canceled to try to stave off financial troubles to no avail. The Kennedy Center has been a shell of itself over the last year. On top of that, a judge ordered the center to pay drummer Chuck Redd more than $250,000 in attorney fees because of an ill-conceived lawsuit. Should the closure stick, performances and other programming would be moved to other venues, including the REACH, which opened in 2019.
