President Donald Trump is considering building a one-story addition to the West Wing of the White House as his $400 million ballroom project keeps getting bigger.
Despite previously declaring that the project would “not interfere” with the existing White House building, the president’s lead architect revealed on Monday that another level could soon be built above the West Wing Colonnade—the iconic columned walkway connecting the Oval Office to the Executive Residence at the White House.
Trump also plans to make his controversial ballroom as tall as the White House’s main mansion itself, chief architect Shalom Baranes said on Thursday, in a move that would break from the long-standing tradition that requires additions to be shorter than the main building.
The details were revealed for the first time as the White House began making its case to the planning body reviewing Trump’s proposed ballroom, which happens to be stacked with the president’s aides and allies.
While presenting the details to the National Capital Planning Commission on Thursday, Baranes said adding another story to the West Wing would “reinstate the symmetry around the central pavilion of the White House,” effectively balancing out new renovations to the now-demolished East Wing.
As revealed by the Daily Beast last month, those renovations would involve rebuilding the East Wing colonnade with a second-story passageway connecting the ballroom to the executive residence, where the president lives.
The ballroom itself would also be on the second level of a newly constructed building and would have the capacity for 1,000 people.
The plans are likely to prove contentious for a project that has already faced significant public backlash and a number of legal challenges.
The first was filed late last year, when the National Trust Preservation Committee sought unsuccessfully to halt further construction until a “legally mandated review process” could take place.
This week, another lawsuit was filed by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, which accused the administration of refusing to release information on whether it removed or released asbestos when it demolished the East Wing to make way for the ballroom.
“When an Administration bypasses required safety procedures or withholds documentation of the measures it took to prevent harm, it erodes public trust and weakens protections required by law to safeguard the American people and public resources,” the lawsuit reads.
Despite public concerns, the White House insists that the president has the authority to carry out his controversial plans.
Trump also kicked off the new year last week with a ballroom shopping spree, spending more than an hour at Arc Stone & Tile, a wholesale supplier near his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, to buy marble and onyx for the project.
The store’s chief executive Mike Coiro told the Daily Beast that the marble the president bought was the same Italian marble he used for Mar-a-Lago’s ballroom, suggesting he is trying to replicate it in Washington.
Earlier in the week, Trump also told reporters: “It’s bigger than I told you.”
“You know, after realizing we’re going to do the inauguration in that building, it’s got all bulletproof glass. It’s got, they call it, drone-free roof. Drones won’t touch it. It’s a big, beautiful, safe building. But it’s a big project,” he said.
In his presentation on Thursday, Baranes said the 51-foot-tall ballroom structure would comprise two levels and its facade would be built with stone and precast concrete.
He also said the new ballroom would be 89,000 square feet in total, and would feature a major banquet space as well as offices for the First Lady and the historic movie theater enjoyed by generations of first families.
The additional story over the West Wing Colonnade would effectively sit above the area Trump has since turned into a presidential “Walk of Fame,” which features framed plaques taking petty swipes at many of his presidential predecessors.
Since returning to power, Trump has also decked the Oval Office out in gold, paved over the Rose Garden with drab concrete, and installed giant flags on the North and South Lawns.
But many describe Trump’s projects as out-of-touch.
“People are saying to themselves, ‘What the hell does that have to do with me? I thought he was going to be fighting for me to bring my costs down?’” former Obama adviser David Axelrod told CNN last week.
Veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove went even further in a Wall Street Journal opinion column, arguing that while Trump “might receive a fawning reaction from his MAGA base,” the average American “finds such narcissism off-putting.”
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