President Donald Trump plans to build his controversial ballroom as tall as the White House’s main mansion itself, the project’s chief architect told a federal review committee Thursday — a significant change of plans that breaks with long-standing architectural norms requiring additions to be shorter than the main building.
Architect Shalom Baranes told the National Capital Planning Commission that the president’s plans call for the building to be about 60 feet high on its north side and 70 feet high on its south side. That differs from representations made as recently as August, when a National Park Service official said the building would be 55 feet tall, according to an environmental assessment.
“The heights will match exactly,” Baranes told the panel.
Baranes also disclosed that the project’s footprint would be about 45,000 square feet, roughly half the size that the administration has described since announcing the project in July. Of that, the ballroom itself would total about 22,000 square feet and would be designed to accommodate roughly 1,000 guests. White House officials have repeatedly said the building would span 90,000 square feet of White House grounds, which Baranes said includes a second floor — a clarification introduced as federal oversight bodies begin an accelerated review of a project for which core specifications continue to evolve.
The presentation comes as the White House begins an unusually compressed push to win approvals from two committees charged by Congress with reviewing federal construction. White House officials have said they intend to complete the process in just over two months, a timeline far shorter than comparable projects, former commissioners have said, placing added pressure on oversight bodies that the administration moved to stock with Trump allies.
Baranes told the panel that the White House had abandoned plans to make the ballroom larger. But he said that officials are now considering a one-story addition to the West Wing’s colonnade in an effort to create symmetry with the planned two-story colonnade that would lead from the White House to the ballroom.
It was only last week that the White House laid out a timeline for approvals, laying out a step-by-step path through the two review bodies. After their appearance at the planning commission, Baranes and administration officials intend to give a nearly identical informational presentation to the Commission of Fine Arts at its Jan. 15 meeting. They plan to come back on Feb. 19 to get the fine arts commission’s approval for the project, followed by a planning commission vote on March 5.
Trump administration officials have said they could start aboveground construction as soon as April.
The president will have to appoint at least four members to the fine arts commission for the body to reach a quorum at its meeting next week. Trump in October fired the panel’s six holdover members appointed by President Joe Biden, and White House officials are currently seeking potential appointees aligned with Trump’s architectural desires.
The Trump administration met with staff members from the planning and fine arts commissions only after a Dec. 17 court order from U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon, holding separate meetings on Dec. 19 and formally submitting applications to review the ballroom project three days later.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation argued in court filings last week that the Trump administration had failed to take “meaningful steps” toward public review or commission approval.
“They have, repeatedly, broken the rules first and asked for permission later,” wrote lawyers for the National Trust, which sued the Trump administration in an effort to halt construction until required reviews occur.
The White House said meeting with committee staffers and submitting conceptual renderings — rather than detailed blueprints — satisfied the judge’s instruction to start engaging with both commissions by the end of the year.
The National Capital Planning Commission is led by Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary and Trump’s former personal lawyer, whom the president appointed in July. The commission’s membership now tilts heavily toward Trump, including two other White House officials and nine Cabinet members.
The review process for the ballroom building differs markedly from past practice. Large projects have previously undergone lengthy, multistage reviews that begin well before any demolition or site work. Agencies typically engage planning commission staff months or even years in advance, with commissioners and staff evaluating design, siting and environmental impacts at each stage.
The Trump White House has compressed or bypassed some of those steps. Officials plan to complete in months a process that took nearly two years for a White House security fence that was significantly smaller than the ballroom. That project involved five public meetings, during which the commission assessed compliance with federal environmental laws and “the historic and symbolic importance of the White House and the surrounding grounds,” according to planning commission documents.
By contrast, Trump has overseen a three-month transformation of a large chunk of the White House grounds with no planning commission oversight. In mid-September, crews started clearing foliage and cutting down trees. In late October, the president shocked the public by ordering the demolition of the East Wing. And by early December, cranes and pile drivers were operating daily, as crews worked to create the underground infrastructure necessary to support the building, the White House said.
Scharf has asserted that the planning commission review process covers only “vertical” construction — not demolition or site preparation. Critics have disputed that assertion, arguing that demolition, site work and construction are inseparable and that the commission’s mandate includes preserving existing historic structures.
Planning commission records show that commissioners have previously approved site development plans for projects, including the perimeter fence and a tennis pavilion built during Trump’s first term. In both cases, site work began after agencies received approvals.
The commission nevertheless adopted Scharf’s argument in the document it published in December outlining its review process, saying the law doesn’t give it authority over “the demolition of buildings or general site preparation.”
Lawmakers and watchdog groups have repeatedly called for more transparency on the estimated $400 million project being funded by private donors — many without disclosing their contributions. Many of the donors the White House has identified — including Amazon, Lockheed Martin and Palantir — have business before the administration, such as seeking future federal contracts or eyeing potential acquisitions. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut), the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent letters last month demanding more information from several attendees of a White House dinner in October to honor ballroom donors.
“The American people are entitled to all the relevant facts about who is funding the most substantial construction project at the White House in recent history,” Blumenthal wrote.
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