President Trump said Monday it will cost roughly $200 million to renovate the Trump — John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, marking the first time he’s put a price tag on his plans to rebuild the facility.
“It’s in very bad shape,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “It’s dilapidated, sort of dangerous. Things fall out of ceilings.”
Mr. Trump announced Sunday night that the center will close in July.
“We are going to close it and we’re going to make it unbelievable, far better than it ever was, and we’ll be able to do it properly,” he said. “We’re going to have something when it opens, it’s going to be brand new, beautiful.”
The president said that performances will run through July 4, and then the theater will be closed for two years while it undergoes renovations. Mr. Trump emphasized that he will not be tearing down the performance venue, but instead will overhaul the building’s interior.
The Kennedy Center has already undergone some slight changes since Mr. Trump took over the venue, named himself chairman and replaced the board with loyalists. His name was added to the building’s facade, the outside columns have been painted white, portraits of the first and second couples now hang in the center’s Hall of Nations and the exterior is lit up in red, white and blue.
Mr. Trump did not say what would happen to annual events that were held at the center, including the Kennedy Center Honors and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
In protest of Mr. Trump’s overhaul of the venue, scores of artists have canceled scheduled performances. There have been reports of weak attendance at shows.
As part of Mr. Trump’s overhaul of the center, he named himself chairman and pledged to rid it of programming that he said was woke and too focused on leftist ideology and political correctness. He has also named members to the board of trustees and will attend the taping of its annual honors program in the fall.
Mr. Trump ousted longtime Kennedy Center Board Chairman David Rubenstein, who is also the center’s biggest donor. The president also fired Deborah F. Rutter, who served as the Kennedy Center’s president for more than a decade.
Mr. Trump installed longtime ally Richard Grenell as president and filled the board with new and conservative faces, including Fox News host Laura Ingraham, second lady Usha Vance, Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
Mr. Trump said the changes were necessary to usher in a “golden age in arts and culture.” He pledged that there would be no more drag shows or “anti-American propaganda” at the Kennedy Center.
Mr. Trump’s changes stunned the arts community, especially after firing the center’s longtime director and promising to change its programming as part of an effort to put his stamp on the national arts scene.
