President Trump on Friday submitted a final plan for his new White House ballroom to the National Capital Planning Commission, moving forward with a fast-tracked process to construct a building much larger than the White House’s Executive Mansion and West Wing combined.
The 28-page document was submitted to the panel ahead of its March 5 meeting in which the board, which is controlled by allies of Mr. Trump, is slated to approve both the preliminary and final site and building plans for the project.
The document contains drawings of the project from multiple angles, making clear that Mr. Trump has rejected calls to scale down his vision for the ballroom to keep the size of the building more in line with the existing White House.
“When completed, it will be the finest Ballroom ever built anywhere in the World,” Mr. Trump wrote on this Truth Social site this week.
The submission also includes new details about the project, including the design of a new garden adjacent to the ballroom.
In October, Mr. Trump abruptly tore down one side of the White House, demolishing the entire East Wing, which contained the historical offices of the first lady, spurring widespread outcry. At the time, no construction plans had been submitted to any oversight authority.
White House officials said then that there was no review needed for a demolition and that they would take plans to the proper commissions before starting construction.
The administration has been under legal pressure from historical preservationists to submit the new ballroom project to a formal review process. So far, the initial construction on the project has been allowed to proceed, though a judge recently expressed deep skepticism about the government’s case.
The submission filed Friday states that the administration has preserved some materials from the East Wing demolition — and plans to include some of those items in the design of the new ballroom.
“These items include, but are not limited to, the East Wing cornerstone and plaque, movie theater furniture, the East Colonnade columns, the Porte-cochere columns, interior wood paneling, chandeliers, historic windows and doors, and other hardware and fixtures,” the plan states. “Our goal is to ensure that some of these items will be integrated into the new structure.”
The administration also said it is studying whether Mr. Trump can build another floor on the West Wing colonnade to try to achieve better balance with the size of the planned East Wing colonnade.
“A structural analysis has been initiated to determine if the Colonnade of the West Wing has the capacity to carry additional loads,” the document states.
Luke Broadwater covers the White House for The Times.
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