President Donald Trump is finally getting his White House ballroom.
‘It’ll be a great legacy project and I think it’ll be special,’ the president said Thursday.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced during her briefing that construction will begin in September on a 90,000 square foot addition to the East Wing that will include Trump’s long sought-after $200 million ballroom.
The Daily Mail reported in April that Trump had started pitching the construction of a White House ballroom in 2010 – back when President Barack Obama was in office and before he launched his own political career.
He said Thursday he had made it a second term goal.
‘In the first term, I said, you know, if I get another shot at this I’m going to do a ballroom,’ Trump said. ‘I was pretty busy in the first because I was running the country and I was also fighting for survival with all the lunatics I had to beat.’
Leavitt said the new ballroom would sit in the current East Wing of the White House, explaining that the building would be ‘modernized’ when asked if portions of the East Wing, originally constructed in 1902, would be torn down.
The current East Wing, which is detached from the main White House residence, houses the offices of the first lady, the White House Military Office and the White House Visitors Office.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that construction on a White House ballroom would start in September. She held up design renderings for reporters in the room
The White House released visuals of the new ballroom on Thursday. The current East Wing of the White House will be ‘modernized’ and 90,000 square feet of new space will be added in a project funded by President Donald Trump and donors
A second story had been added in 1942.
Leavitt said the staff of those offices would be relocated during construction.
The ballroom project, funded largely by private donors, is expected to be finished before the end of Trump’s term, she said.
‘I’ll do it and we’ll probably have some donors or whatever, but it’s about $200 million,’ the president answered.
When Trump originally pitched the ballroom to top Obama adviser David Axelrod in 2010 Axelrod later said he didn’t remember the now-president offering to pay for the project.
During a subsequent interview on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show, Trump voiced annoyance that the Obama White House wouldn’t take him up on his offer.
The current White House residence can be seen (left) in a rendering of the new White House ballroom, which will extend and replace portions of the current East Wing (right)
A view of the renovated and expanded White House East Wing from the East. The ballroom project will expand the East Wing by 90,000 square feet
The updated East Wing will have a far more majestic entrance according to the mock-ups of the designs
President Donald Trump originally pitched the construction of a White House ballroom when he saw that first lady Michelle Obama was using a tent to host larger events in the White House’s South Lawn, including state dinners. The tent was photographed in November 2009
Trump – then a real estate developer – offered to build the Obamas a ballroom because he didn’t like the look of the tents first lady Michelle Obama was erecting on the South Lawn to host state dinners.
‘When a dignitary comes in from India, from anywhere, they open up a tent. They have a tent. A tent!’ Trump told Limbaugh, later referring to it as a ‘lousy looking tent.’
The president expanded on those comments when asked about the ballroom project during an executive order signing Thursday afternoon.
Trump mentioned the tent and added ‘when it rains it’s a disaster.’
‘And the tent’s 100 yards, that’s more than a football field away from the main entrance and people are [schlepping] down to the tent. It’s not a pretty sight. The women with their lovely evening gowns, their hair all done and they’re a mess by the time they get in,’ Trump said.
Leavitt similarly described the tent as ‘unsightly’ and said the ballroom would allow for a capacity of 650 people, a significant increase from the current 200-person allowance in the White House East Room.
The White House ballroom’s designs are similar to those found at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago and his former hotel in Washington, D.C.
A mock-up of the design shows the current East Colonnade and how it would connect to the expanded and renovated East Wing
Mock-ups of the design were almost immediately available on the White House’s website, with Leavitt holding up several visuals in the briefing room for reporters.
The gilded interior design looks similar to ballroom additions Trump has constructed at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and the Old Post Office in Washington, D.C., which for several years was the Trump International Hotel.
‘So we’ve been planning it for a long time,’ Trump said. ‘They’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House for more than 150 years but there’s never been a president that was good at ballrooms. I’m really good.’
‘I’m good at building things and we’ll get it built quickly and on time. It will be beautiful, top of the line,’ he added.
During his first six months in office, Trump has also erected two large flagpoles on the White House’s North and South Lawns – and paved over the grass in the Rose Garden, a projected that is expected to be completed soon.
