The Kennedy Center may need to be demolished and replaced with an open-air performance space if its current building cannot undergo extensive renovations, lawyers for the venue said in court papers on Monday.
Citing efforts by U.S. President Donald Trump to shutter the historic performance arts venue for a years-long renovation, the lawyers told a federal judge that without that work, the centre “will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down.”
They said that decisions would then need to be made “on what to build on the site, such as a large outdoor amphitheatre overlooking the Potomac River that has been proposed, by some, for many years.”
Monday’s filing comes days after the centre’s board, which is stacked with Trump allies, voted again to close the centre down for the renovations. Those votes have faced repeated scrutiny in court, with a federal judge stepping in earlier this year to block the closure plans after he determined they were made unlawfully.
In the filing, the lawyers do not say whether such a plan had been discussed by the board at a meeting it held earlier this month. Instead, it was mentioned alongside arguments defending the board’s decision to vote, once again, to add Trump’s name to the front of the centre’s facade and in other areas belonging to the centre.
U.S. District Judge Casey Cooper is set to hold a hearing on Thursday over a bid by Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty to stop the centre from inscribing Trump’s name on its building. The Ohio congresswoman is arguing that such a move would violate federal law and defy a ruling from the judge earlier this year that said the centre could not be renamed to honour both Trump and the 35th president.
Devan Cole and Sunlen Serfaty, CNN
