President Donald Trump’s administration is eyeing West Potomac Park in Washington as a potential site for his planned National Garden of American Heroes, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive decision. The prominent riverside area sits south of the National Mall near the memorials to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr.
It was not clear which section of the park the White House was considering, but the southern tip of West Potomac Park — a short walk from the Jefferson Memorial — has largely been used for athletic fields. If the president sought to use those grounds to build his planned monument — a vast sculpture garden of 250 notable American figures — it would likely require an exemption under the Commemorative Works Act, the law restricting the use of space around some federal lands in Washington.
Trump spoke about his interest in building the garden, which has been described as a “vast outdoor park,” in an interview with the New York Times last week.
“That’s going to be most likely right on the Potomac River, … an area that is touching the golf course,” the president said, apparently alluding to the East Potomac Park golf course without specifying exactly where the garden could be built. “That hasn’t been a final decision, but it’s getting close.”
West Potomac Park sits northwest of the golf course but does not touch it. The golf course also abuts another, less legally restricted area, the picnic grounds at East Potomac Park’s southern tip. Two people familiar with early plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter, said areas near and on the golf course property were also considered earlier for the Garden of Heroes.
It’s unclear whether the golf course, or other sites, are still in contention.
A White House official confirmed the accuracy of Trump’s remarks. Officials said the planned site is still under discussion. The National Park Service and the Interior Department did not respond to requests for comment.
Trump’s comments about the potential site come after his administration terminated a lease with National Links Trust, a nonprofit that had signed a 50-year agreement with the National Park Service in 2020 to operate and renovate Washington’s three public golf courses.
In October, the Trump administration issued the group a default notice, though it did not specify reasons the group was in violation of its lease or how it could remedy any concerns — a process that lawmakers said breaks from the National Park Service’s lease requirements.
In its termination letter last month, the Interior Department said the nonprofit organization hadn’t moved quickly enough to renovate the golf courses and the termination cleared a path for the president to seize control of the land.
When asked whether the lease termination was related to the statue garden, Trump told the Times, “Yeah, more or less.”
In a statement to The Washington Post last month, the Interior Department said, “The Trump administration prides itself on getting the job done for the American people and partnering with others who share that same goal.”
West Potomac Park falls within the Commemorative Works Act’s reserve area — the most restricted designation for new construction under the law — meaning the Trump administration would need approval from Congress to build the monument. The administration would also be required to submit its plans to several planning commissions that guide the authorization, design, construction and maintenance of statues, memorials and monuments in the D.C. area.
Trump officials have previously sought legal loopholes for the president’s other construction projects, arguing that they were permitted to tear down the East Wing annex of the White House last year without prior approval because current regulations only govern construction, not demolition, on the White House’s grounds. Democrats and watchdog groups have challenged that interpretation, which is also at the center of a lawsuit filed against the administration by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The garden’s review bodies would include the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts — two federal panels where Trump has moved to install allies.
A handful of sites around the country had reportedly been floated as potential locations for the garden, including Philadelphia and the National Mall.
In March, South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden (R) offered a plot of land in the Black Hills near Mount Rushmore, which is where Trump first shared his vision for the garden in 2020.
At the time, the president described the project as “a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live.”
Trump also signed two executive orders for the project in his first term, describing a garden filled with statues of notable figures and providing a long list of examples, including George Washington, Louis Armstrong, Amelia Earhart, Alexander Hamilton, Rosa Parks, William F. Buckley, Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Dr. Seuss, Norman Rockwell, Muhammad Ali, Frank Sinatra and many more.
The Biden administration rescinded both orders, but Trump reinstated them last year and moved quickly to reshape the nation’s cultural landscape ahead of the celebrations for America’s 250th birthday.
The National Endowment for the Humanities, which was overhauled in April to support the garden, announced a funding opportunity later that month inviting sculptors to submit statue proposals.
The agency’s website said the garden is set to open in July as the country celebrates its semiquincentennial.
But the project is well behind schedule. Sculptors — who were expected to start on the statues in October and complete them by June 1 — have yet to be announced.
Those delays have intensified concerns about whether the garden can open by the summer — or even be completed by the end of Trump’s term, as his administration has requested.
Among the considerations are the cost of transportation for materials such as marble, granite, bronze, copper and brass; the availability of fine-art foundries in the United States and the location for the garden, a crucial factor in determining how to properly seal and install the statues in the ground to withstand environmental conditions.
The National Endowment for the Arts, whose funding was also redirected to the garden, recently awarded 50 grants to arts projects honoring the national heroes listed in Trump’s 2021 executive order.
The post Trump officials eye West Potomac Park, near National Mall, for Garden of Heroes appeared first on Washington Post.
