Trump plans $200M ballroom he’s long sought in East Wing expansion
Trump plans $200M ballroom he’s long sought in East Wing expansion
The project to construct a massive ballroom fulfills a wish for Trump, who has long disliked the tent pitched on the lawn to accommodate large-scale events.
The project, long on Trump’s wish list, seeks to solve a problem White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said has frustrated the president and his predecessors: a lack of space for major functions that requires “a large and unsightly tent” about 300 feet from the main building entrance.
“They’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House for more than 150 years, but there’s never been a president that was good at ballrooms — really good, in fact,” Trump said at a news conference Thursday, adding: “When they have big events — you entertain the president of China, the president of any place — and you have big crowds, they’ve always had a tent.”
The ballroom is Trump’s latest and most ambitious effort to leave his mark on one of the world’s most iconic buildings, one that will endure long after he leaves. Other items have drawn his focus in the opening six months of his term. Since taking office in January, he has paved over the Rose Garden’s lawn, vowed to replace a “terribly” remodeled bathroom in the Lincoln Bedroom and installed twin 88-foot flagpoles on the north and south lawns of the White House, each flying massive American flags.
Trump committed to spending no public money for the project, which the White House said Thursday would be funded by him and other donors: “No government to help us,” he said.
The White House did not say whether the $200 million price tag would include the cost of relocating East Room offices. The announcement Thursday drew criticism from Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York), but since Trump plans to use private funding instead of going through Congress, Democrats could struggle to stop him.
Trump has met with the National Park Service and other agencies to move the project forward, Leavitt said. The project represents one of the most significant changes in the 233-year history of a building that has burned to the ground and been gutted and rebuilt.
The ballroom will be built where the “small, heavily changed, and reconstructed East Wing currently sits,” Leavitt said Thursday during a press briefing. When asked if crews would tear anything down to make way for the new structure, Leavitt said “the East Wing is going to be modernized” and those whose offices are set up there, including first lady Melania Trump and her staff, will relocate during construction. The White House said the building will be designed by McCrery Architects, built by Clark Construction and engineered by AECOM.
On Thursday, Trump said construction “won’t interfere with the current building. It’ll be near it, but not touching.”
Administration officials will “preserve the special history of the White House,” Leavitt said, adding that McCreary Architects, which is based in D.C., is “well known for their classical architectural design.”
“President Trump is a builder at heart and has an extraordinary eye for detail,” his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, said in a statement. “The President and the Trump White House are fully committed to working with the appropriate organizations to preserving the special history of the White House while building a beautiful ballroom that can be enjoyed by future Administrations and generations of Americans to come.”
Trump chimed in a couple hours later before signing an unrelated executive order: “It pays total respect to the existing building.”
Building a large White House ballroom has been an ambition of Trump’s since before he was president.
In 2011, Trump told ABC newsman George Stephanopoulos he had called the Obama administration about a year earlier to malign the “old broken canvas tent” officials were trotting out to entertain the world’s leaders. In his 2015 memoir “Believer,” David Axelrod, senior adviser to President Barack Obama, said he talked to Trump during the Obama administration on a phone call in which “The Apprentice” reality TV star insulted the tents officials used to host state dinners and offered to build a ballroom.
“Let me build you a ballroom you can assemble and take apart,” Axelrod recalled Trump saying. “Trust me. It’ll look great.”
In February 2015, then-White House press secretary Josh Earnest confirmed Trump had made the offer. Neither Obama nor his advisers seriously considered taking him up on it because “I’m not sure that it would be appropriate to have a shiny gold Trump sign on any part of the White House,” Earnest told reporters.
Trump in February said he’d offered three or four times over the years to build a ballroom. Trump said he even made the offer to the Biden administration after losing the 2020 election but never heard back.
There have been five major instances of White House construction and renovation in the country’s history, according to the White House Historical Association.
Construction began on the first iteration of the president’s residence in 1792. The British burned the building down in the War of 1812, and it was rebuilt in 1817. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt created office space for the president and staff by building the West Wing, and a quarter-century later, President Calvin Coolidge repaired and renovated the upper floors of the building’s attic. And in 1952, after the White House showed signs of serious structural weakness, President Harry S. Truman launched a renovation “in which everything but the outer walls was dismantled,” according to the historical association.
The White House has remained relatively unchanged in the 73 years since, save a swimming pool here (President Gerald Ford) and a basketball court there (Obama).
Ever the builder, Trump hopes to leave a bigger mark.
“It’ll be a great legacy project,” he said.
