Judge Orders Kennedy Center to Provide 30 Days’ Notice Before Major Physical Changes

A federal judge on Sept. 17 ordered the Kennedy Center to provide 30 days’ notice before making major physical changes to the building, including demolition.

Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia did not provide further details but said the ruling was made to “avoid any confusion on that score given more recent events.”

The order came after the board voted on Sept. 15 to close the center for safety reasons and to conduct renovations. President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that although the Kennedy Center would close immediately, the reconstruction would not begin until the D.C. Circuit issues a ruling “on the Board’s approved name.”

In a filing, the administration said that without Trump’s name on the building, the institution will struggle to raise the funds necessary to renovate it.

Trump’s name was removed in June after an order by Cooper.

The administration warned that the Kennedy Center “will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down, with a determination to follow on what to build on the site, such as a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River that has been proposed, by some, for many years.”

Trump was seen on Air Force One with a poster of the Kennedy Center being demolished, sparking speculation about that possibility.

“So, for the Trump administration, for me, to get involved and to take that on long term and to carry it or to raise money to carry it, I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition because, frankly, if we don’t do that, it’s going to close,” Trump told reporters in North Carolina. “It’ll end up being ripped down. It’s in very, very bad shape, very dangerous shape.”

In a statement to The Epoch Times, the White House defended Trump’s attempts to fix the Kennedy Center.

“For years, Democrats let the Kennedy Center rot, allowing water damage and crumbling infrastructure to turn a national treasure into a building in decay,” spokesperson Liz Huston said. “As President Trump said last night, without his intervention, the Kennedy Center will inevitably continue to decline.”

A May order by Cooper said that the Kennedy Center cannot indefinitely close. That order has been appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court.

Cooper ruled on Sept. 15 that Trump’s name could not be attached to the Kennedy Center without congressional approval.

He said the government has not demonstrated that “current or future donations hinge on President Trump’s name being on the building.” He dismissed the Justice Department’s claim that removing Trump’s name “would prevent the Center from fulfilling its artistic mission, as it has done for the last sixty years.”

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center board who is challenging the renovations and the renaming of the institution after Trump, has also challenged the center’s closure. Cooper denied an emergency motion from Beatty for a hearing on the closure.

Beatty’s attorneys have claimed that temporarily shutting down the Kennedy Center is a pretext for closing it permanently.

A Sept. 17 court filing by the center’s executive director, Matt Floca, also revealed that the institution will be closed for at least a week for repairs “unless extended.” Beatty’s lawyers said that Floca’s closure goes against Cooper’s order that the Kennedy Center remain open.

This closure was separate from the board’s earlier decision to shut down the institution, the Justice Department said in another Sept. 17 filing.

Floca wrote in a court declaration that he “came to the conclusion” on Sept. 16 “that acute risks to public safety resulting from continued structural deterioration at the Center necessitated a temporary closure of most public spaces in the main building of the Center to general public access.”

In his declaration, Floca wrote that there were “continued life-safety hazards to individuals who might access certain public portions of the building” that have “created untenable risks to the health and safety of those individuals.”