Preservation Groups Contest Trump Plans to Revamp Kennedy Center

Historic preservationists have challenged President Donald Trump’s stated plans to renovate the Kennedy Center, in at least the second federal court lawsuit fighting changes to the decades-old performing arts venue.

The DC Preservation League, National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States, and other heritage and architecture organizations asked a Washington federal trial court Monday to block Trump from demolishing, renovating, or otherwise majorly changing the Kennedy Center building.

The organizations argued that the administration needs approval from Congress before undertaking a major renovation to the building, and that funds set aside by lawmakers for maintenance and repair would not authorize the construction of a new or expanded building.

The administration also didn’t go through required reviews from environmental, planning, and fine arts boards and commissions required for the project, the lawsuit alleged. Once construction begins, those reviews are “rendered little more than a post hoc formality,” the suit said.

“Historic fabric, once demolished, cannot be restored,” the complaint says.

The heritage groups asked the court to consider their request quickly, given the “imminent risk of irreversible harm to the Kennedy Center’s historic fabric and to the public’s participatory rights.” They also described the latest actions toward the performing arts center as “part of Defendants’ broader pattern of unauthorized damage to historic buildings in the capital district.”

The Trump administration has faced other lawsuits, involving some of the same heritage groups behind Monday’s suit, challenging his plans to construct a new ballroom on the site of the White House’s demolished East Wing and to paint the granite exterior of the 19th-century Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which now houses offices for White House staff.

Carol Quillen, president and CEO of the National Trust, said in a statement that the groups are “concerned that, as with the White House East Wing, the potential scope of planned changes is understated and will result in irreparable loss.”

The Kennedy Center’s board of trustees, handpicked by Trump, voted March 16 to approve the upcoming closure. The vote followed declining ticket sales and multiple artists canceling scheduled performances, after Trump appointed himself to Kennedy Center’s board and had the building renamed for himself.

Trump announced plans on Truth Social in February to close the Kennedy Center for two years beginning this summer for “Construction of the new and spectacular Entertainment Complex.” He told reporters the next day he would be “using the steel” and “some of the marble” for the renovation project, which he said could cost as much as $200 million.

Trump also posted computer-generated images on Truth Social earlier this month of the building that he described as “Two renderings of the new, highly improved, TRUMP KENNEDY CENTER!”

Monday’s lawsuit is at least the second one filed challenging Trump’s plans for the Kennedy Center, opened in 1971 as a living memorial to the late President John F. Kennedy.

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), an ex-officio member of the center’s board as a member of Congress, has also asked the US District Court for the District of Columbia to block the closure and renaming of the performing arts center.

Judge Christopher “Casey” Cooper ordered the Kennedy Center’s board to allow Beatty to speak at the March 16 vote, where the board voted on the closure, but denied her request to be allowed to vote. The judge hasn’t yet ruled on her request to stop the closure and renaming.

The case is DC Preservation League v. Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, D.D.C., No. 1:26-cv-00981, complaint 3/23/26.