The Trump-appointed leaders of the Kennedy Center voted Tuesday to immediately close the institution’s performing arts building in Washington, citing safety and financial concerns.
The white marble landmark on the bank of the Potomac River, built as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy, will be closed indefinitely to all visitors, according to the board of trustees. A spokesperson for Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex-officio member of the board, confirmed the vote with MS NOW.
The full shutdown of the complex — a plan first floated by President Donald Trump as part of a $250 million project — is necessary in order to keep the building from posing a danger to employees and the public, according to the board.
Tuesday’s vote came during a board meeting that took place immediately after a hearing in the federal lawsuit brought by Beatty, to block the institution from being renamed in Trump’s honor.
In a decision that came down minutes before the board met, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper blocked the board’s proposal to inscribe “renovated and restored by Donald J. Trump” on the main building, or to rename the campus “President Donald J. Trump Plaza,” reiterating that the inscriptions violate his May order that found renaming the building to the Trump-Kennedy Center unlawful.
“Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’ blessing,” Cooper wrote in the 22-page opinion. He denied part of Beatty’s motion, a request to block the inscription of “endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund,” calling such a ruling premature.
The board was originally slated to consider two resolutions Tuesday, one that suggested 10 new ways to name the center after Trump in order to rectify an impending financial crisis there, and the other to ratify a previous vote the board took in favor of closing the building for renovations. The first was quietly scrapped from Tuesday’s meeting agenda, leaving only the vote to close the center on the schedule, according to a court document filed by the Justice Department overnight Monday.
“The law is extremely clear: The John F. Kennedy Center is named for President Kennedy — and no one else,” Beatty said in a statement celebrating Cooper’s Tuesday ruling. “But President Trump is holding the Kennedy Center hostage unless he can put his name on this sacred memorial. The Court just rejected this proposal for the second time. This unlawfulness is as breathtaking as it is wrong, and it needs to stop.”
The board deemed the main building “unsafe for continued occupancy,” according to the text of a draft resolution written by the panel. Officials “anticipate further risk to the public and employees if the building is not immediately closed and renovations begun,” the document said, citing a review of the center conducted by Delta Consulting Group, a firm hired by the board to review its renovation plans.
The document noted damage to the plaster ceiling above the building’s Grand Foyer sustained during a severe Sept. 4 thunderstorm that has since caused leaks and the release of “debris from a height of approximately 60 feet.”
“The Board, being duly advised, believes that the risk associated with exposing patrons and employees to a hazardous building greatly outweighs any reputational risk associated with closing the main building,” the document said.
But Beatty, who has been at the forefront of the legal challenge to Trump’s bid to rename the memorial after himself, railed against that logic in court on Tuesday. The Ohio congresswoman had filed the board’s two draft resolutions to Judge Cooper ahead of the hearing and notified the court of the board’s voting plans.
The resolutions directly “implicate” her motion for emergency relief and the scope of discovery in the ongoing litigation, Beatty said in the court filing. In Tuesday’s hearing, Beatty argued that the court’s move to close the center unlawfully usurped Congress’ authority.
The board had been seeking to ratify a previous vote that approved closing the building for two years of renovations after the July 4 holiday. But that decision was temporarily blocked by Cooper, who at the time ruled that the board failed to fully consider the president’s closure plan before approving it.
The board warned that the performing arts center, which has seen ticket sales plummet amid Trump’s overhaul of its leadership, operations and name, is “on the brink of bankruptcy,” according to the second draft resolution. It suggested that the only way to save the center from the financial cliff is by etching Trump’s name into its marble facade, thus ensuring that the president would be motivated to help with fundraising efforts.
“The Kennedy Center is in such a precarious fiscal position that it will not be able to support its payroll obligations, nor routine maintenance contracts within a matter of weeks,” reads the draft resolution.
Cooper’s decision Tuesday will make it harder for the board to move forward with what it called “appropriate recognition” of Trump on the landmark.
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