WASHINGTON — The bust of John F. Kennedy will remain in the Grand Foyer and the opera house seats will still be red. But officials involved in plans to renovate the Kennedy Center say big changes are coming to the venue.

Matt Floca, the center’s new executive director and chief operating officer, led reporters on a tour Wednesday to highlight areas he said needed repair — defending the controversial decision to close a centerpiece of the capital’s arts scene for two years starting in July.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which President Donald Trump took over last year, has seen ticket sales drop since he installed himself as chairman and re-branded it with his own name ahead of Kennedy’s. But Floca said the closure, part of a $257 million refurbishment project, is motivated by the need to update the facility.

“The decision to close the center is completely founded in the maintenance needs of this building,” he told reporters after the tour.

Floca said it was his suggestion the center shutter its doors for two years to see the work through.

“The president asked, ‘How do you make these projects the best? How do you make them really excellent and deliver them efficiently?’ Floca said. “My recommendation was you close the building and you do everything over a definite period of time — two years.”

Floca, who has a background in facilities management and worked in local government for more than 10 years, in March replaced Richard Grenell, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany, who Trump brought in to lead the Kennedy Center after firing its previous president in early 2025.

Trump said in February he planned to shut down the renamed “Trump Kennedy Center” for the renovations, which would cover everything from fresh landscaping and new pavement to refinished marble and upgraded restrooms.

Deeper changes for safety and long-term maintenance needs will be made, too. Scaffolding will be erected so that panels weighing more than 2,000 pounds on the underside of the building’s roof can be taken down and replaced. Repairs to address and prevent water damage and rust will be made throughout the Kennedy Center campus as well.

Trump has upended Washington since returning to power, ordering the National Guard to patrol the city, tearing down the East Wing of the White House to make room for a $400 million ballroom, and putting his name on the Institute of Peace as well as the Kennedy Center, which was erected to be a living memorial to the 35th president, who was assassinated in 1963.

Floca said that he could not think of anything related to Kennedy that would be changed during the makeover.

“We’re maintaining the JFK bust where it is,” he said, referring to a sculpture of the former president displayed prominently in the foyer. “The memorial at large will stay the same. All of the quotes and everything on the marble on the exterior building, none of that’s changing.”

The center has increased its outreach to lawmakers, the press and the public ahead of July to make the case for the closing, which stunned the city and raised fears among some that Trump would remake it in ways more aligned with his own tastes, much as he has sought to do with the White House itself.

Floca said an area of the center known as the REACH would stay open to the public during renovations. Job losses during the two-year period are expected.

The center, which gets its cooling capacity from the Potomac River via a pipe that funnels water into its chillers, is also studying an unconventional way to upgrade its cooling system.

The Kennedy Center is in initial discussions with the city water utility about using sewage running through a local pumping station as an energy-efficient option that would be cheaper than electricity or new cooling towers.

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