While Kennedy Center officials consider the extent of planned renovations, the arts facility will remain open, at least for the time being.
But don’t expect any new programming in the immediate future.
In a Friday night court filing, Kennedy Center executive director Matt Floca listed three options expected to be presented to the center’s board in mid-July. The first option is a “full closure to accelerate construction activities with no ongoing public programming.”
The second option: “A partial closure of specific building spaces, enabling some continued public access and limited programming in unaffected spaces.”
And, finally, the third option: “A coordinated series of phased closures designed to address the most critical infrastructure needs while maintaining more onsite programming.”
Floca’s filing indicates that Kennedy Center management will allow for “continued public access” to the building and its John F. Kennedy exhibit.
In a response to the Friday filing, attorneys for Kennedy Center ex officio board member Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), who filed the original lawsuit against the administration over the closure and the addition of Donald Trump’s name to the center’s facade, said that “management has not yet taken any affirmative steps related to programming or staffing.”
Floca’s filing, Beatty’s lawyers asserted, “confirms that they plan to turn the Kennedy Center into a lifeless husk.”
Beatty’s lawyers also addressed the scaffolding and tarp that were erected to shield the removal of Trump’s name from the building. “Today, the tarp inexplicably remains,” Team Beatty wrote last night. “Indeed, it appears that the tarp will be there for the long term..This latest development is a transparent effort to frustrate a return to the status quo that existed prior to the Board’s unlawful vote to rename the Kennedy Center on December 18, 2025.”
Responding to media reports that the scaffolding and tarp will remain up “as crews address maintenance needs of the marble and soffit panels,” Beatty’s lawyers wrote, “This is plainly pretextual: The scaffolding appears to be approximately twenty feet below the soffits. Nor have Defendants provided any explanation of these supposed ‘maintenance needs.’ Instead, Defendants appear to be actively undermining the restoration of the Kennedy Center’s name, in a petty act of defiance. In addition to raising concerns about compliance, willfully sabotaging Kennedy Center’s iconic façade to assuage Defendants’ vanity or massage broken egos is a clear breach of fiduciary duty.”
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