The Kennedy Center board voted Thursday to inscribe President Trump's name on the building and advance a two-year, $250 million renovation of the main campus.
The Kennedy Center board voted Thursday to inscribe President Donald J. Trump's name on the iconic Washington landmark and move forward with a sweeping $250 million renovation of the main building, setting up another clash with the federal judge who blocked similar moves earlier this year.
The vote, held during a closed-door meeting over Zoom, approved an inscription beneath the center's main signage reading "The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump." Board members also voted a second time to shut the main building for roughly two years while the renovation proceeds, according to people with knowledge of the vote.
The renovation plan includes structural repairs, new marble flooring and nearly $12 million in acoustical improvements aimed at restoring the aging complex to its original standard. The famous eight-foot bronze bust of President John F. Kennedy in the main foyer will be temporarily relocated during the work.
Under the plan approved by the board, the main campus would close while the REACH, the newer addition to the complex, remains open for limited programming and serves as a memorial to Kennedy. The full campus is expected to reopen in the summer of 2028.
President Trump first announced the renovation plans in February, describing the two-year project as necessary to address structural issues at the facility. This is the second time the board has voted to move forward with the closure. An earlier vote in March was blocked by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee, who ruled that board members had not received sufficient information to make the decision.
The naming battle dates to December, when the center's newly reconstituted board -- restocked with Trump appointees after the president dismissed the Democratic members who had long dominated it -- first added Trump's name to the facade. Trump himself chairs the board, which has pursued an aggressive overhaul of the institution since taking it over.
Judge Cooper ruled in May that the name change was unlawful, finding that only Congress, which named the center after Kennedy in 1964, has the authority to alter it. The center removed the name in June to comply with the ruling while appealing the decision. A large tarp has covered that portion of the facade ever since.
Thursday's vote to add the new inscription -- which honors Trump's role in the center's revitalization without formally renaming the institution -- is widely seen as a direct test of the court's order. Rep. Joyce Beatty, the Ohio Democrat who serves as an ex officio board member and has sued over the naming and closure, called the decision "more of the same" and accused the board of a "transparent effort to circumvent the Court's ruling."
The board's persistence reflects a broader fight over the direction of the performing arts center, which critics of the old leadership had long complained was drifting away from its mission. Supporters of the Trump overhaul see it as a long-overdue return to excellence for a federal institution that had become a symbol of establishment complacency.
The board's decisions now return to Judge Cooper, who must sign off on the closure plan. The center is required to present its renovation plan to the court by next week, and the judge has the power to delay the project if he finds the board's process deficient.
For supporters of the president's overhaul, the vote represents a decisive step toward modernizing a landmark that had grown stale under decades of establishment management. The board's resolve -- voting twice to move forward despite court pushback -- signals the administration's commitment to seeing the project through.
With the renovation projected to run through 2028, the Kennedy Center's transformation will unfold over the next two years, with the REACH wing keeping the institution's doors open in the meantime. The final word, however, rests with the courts.
The Kennedy Center board voted Thursday to inscribe President Trump's name on the building and advance a two-year, $250 million renovation of the main campus.
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