The White House on Friday unveiled plans for a 33,000-square-foot visitor screening center, located below a park southeast of the mansion, the latest step in President Donald Trump’s effort to remake the White House grounds.
Visitors and tour groups would access the White House grounds by going into a facility beneath Sherman Park, according to plans posted on the website of the National Capital Planning Commission, a committee charged by Congress with overseeing federal construction. The new seven-lane screening center would replace temporary trailers and tents that have long been used to screen White House visitors, who sometimes face lengthy wait times during major events.
The White House also proposed a new 5,000-square-foot recessed plaza on the south side of Sherman Park abutting the screening center, which the White House said would be used to enter the facility and prevent queuing on 15th Street NW. Visitors would exit the screening facility via a new 4,000-square-foot building close to Trump’s planned ballroom, according to the plans.
The monument to Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman at the center of the park would remain untouched, the White House said. The project is being overseen by the Executive Office of the President, the Secret Service and the National Park Service.
The White House said that Trump was personally driving the project in an effort to provide “the best experience possible” for White House guests.
“This President took it upon himself to modernize the experience for visitors touring the People’s House from beginning to end,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement.
The White House did not respond to questions about how the project will be funded.
Administration officials are set to present the plans at an April 2 meeting of the NCPC, which is led by Trump allies who have indicated their support for his past projects. The preliminary agenda lists a vote on comments related to the plan concepts, not a final vote to approve the project.
The commission is separately expected to vote at that meeting on Trump’s planned ballroom, a project that officials have sometimes linked with their broader plans for the campus.
Joshua Fisher, a senior White House official, previewed the visitor-screening plans in a January meeting as part of a presentation on Trump’s ballroom. He cast the project at the time as part of a broader effort to enhance the experience of visiting the iconic grounds.
“Historically when you come to the White House, you go through double-wide trailers — tents out in the cold,” Fisher said. “We don’t think that that’s befitting of what the White House should be or could be, quite frankly.”
Phil Mendelson, who sits on the commission by virtue of his position as D.C. Council chairman, responded by criticizing the Trump administration for not waiting to present their proposals for the White House collectively.
“We’re looking at what appears to be an overall plan in a very segmented approach,” Mendelson said in January.
Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report.
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