Trump plots dramatic one-story West Wing expansion as fresh plans for White House ballroom are revealed

The architect who led the design of President Donald Trump’s controversial White House ballroom project revealed new details Thursday, including plans for a West Wing expansion.

Shalom Baranes submitted initial designs to the National Capital Planning Commission, the body that oversees federal construction projects in Washington.

The presentation represented the first public look at Trump’s ambitious renovation plans, which would see the East Wing demolished to make way for the new ballroom.

Current plans call for the East Columns, which were demolished along with the East Wing of the White House, to be rebuilt as a two-story structure instead of the original single story.

The redesign will allow guests to enter the ballroom from the historic East Room within the Executive Mansion, the main building of the White House.

However, since the two-story colonnade would make the White House look disproportionate, Baranes announced that the White House could add a single-story extension to the West Wing to restore ‘symmetry’ following the overhaul of the East Wing.

The existing one-story West Column building, which Trump abandoned in August and mocked as building “something beautiful,” now houses the White House briefing room and journalists’ offices.

The open-air section of the structure currently houses Trump’s ‘Presidential Walk of Fame’; here the president wrote plaques disparaging some of his Democratic predecessors.

Red circles indicate where a one-story addition to the White House’s West Columns would be proposed to offset the two-story East Column, which architect Shalom Baranes pointed out with his pen at Thursday’s NCPC meeting

“Here you see the upper story of the East Pillars and the potential for a future one-story addition to the West Wing, and that’s going to happen right here,” the architect said, bringing with him large cardboard drawings of the plans.

“You see, the reason we thought of this was to restore symmetry around the central pavilion of the White House,” Baranes explained.

Later in the presentation, when asked about a possible expansion of the West Wing, Baranes explained: ‘It will only be in the colonnaded area,’ meaning the two-story Oval Office will not be available.

The project has faced criticism for the White House’s lack of transparency about its plans to demolish the East Wing, which originally dated back to 1902 but was rebuilt in 1942 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt in part to hide the White House bunker.

It was also notable that the ballroom was funded entirely by donors, including companies that have business with the US government.

Ahead of Thursday’s meeting, a group of about a dozen protesters, including some from the watchdog group Common Cause, gathered outside NCPC headquarters and held signs saying “corruption has never looked this tacky.”

At the meeting, NCPC Chairman Will Scharf, Trump’s elected leader and who also serves as White House Chief of Staff, advised the handful of people in attendance to keep the peace.

Scharf acknowledged that ‘ballroom’ as an agenda item had received ‘passionate comments’ from both sides.

President Donald Trump took a walk on the roof of the West Colonnade in August and signaled that there might be changes on this side of the White House, too. The ballroom’s architect says there is a proposal to build it two stories to accommodate changes to the East Wing

White House Chief of Staff and NCPC Chairman Will Scharf (center) asks the public to keep peace at the top of the meeting as President Donald Trump’s ballroom project draws ‘passionate comments from both sides’

About a dozen protesters gathered outside and asked the National Capital Planning Commission to block the ballroom project from moving forward. One of the demonstrators’ banners read: ‘Corruption never looks this tacky’

“While there will be opportunities for public comment on the ballroom project in the future, we ask that you do not disrupt today’s commission meeting, and if you make an illegal interruption in commission, unfortunately we will have to ask you to leave the room,” Scharf said.

Scharf also apologized in advance if he was left pessimistic.

“For those of you making New Year’s resolutions, I quit nicotine eight days ago, so if I’m irritable or less enthusiastic or energetic, that’s why,” the president said with a laugh.

During the meeting, he reiterated his belief that the NCPC did not oversee the demolitions, which allowed the East Wing to be demolished in October without any government oversight.

No interruptions interrupted the meeting; The only objections to the ballroom plans came from committee members representing the city.

Baranes, who took over the project from architect James McCrery in November, said later that month that the decision had been made ‘not to continue exploring options to increase the size of the project’.

There were rumors that Trump wanted the ballroom to be even bigger, as the price tag for the project has now risen to nearly $400 million.

Shalom Baranes shows floor plans for the White House ballroom project, showing the first floor of the rebuilt East Wing on the left and the second room, which could contain the 22,000-square-foot ballroom, on the right.

The current plans for the ballroom are based on one of the plans McCrery originally designed; that plan would include a 22,000-square-foot ballroom that could fit 1,000 guests for dinner.

The overall new structure, which will also include East Wing offices for the First Lady’s staff, will be part of a two-story, 89,000-square-foot building.

Phil Mendelson, an NCPC committee member and president of the D.C. City Council, said he would like to see the project reduced in size for fear the addition would dwarf the White House’s main building.

“I am concerned about the excessive crushing of the original historic building,” Mendelson told the committee.

He also expressed concern that the board was looking at only one part of the White House project at a time.

‘Another observation I have is that it bothers me that we’re looking at an addition to this historic structure, but we’re looking at what appears to be an overall plan with a very fragmented approach,’ he said.

“So there will be some changes in the visitor center, there will be some changes in Lafayette Park, there will be some changes in the West Wing,” he said, stating that he prefers to look at the project as a whole.

NCPC commission member Linda Argo, appointed by Democratic Mayor Muriel Bower of Washington DC, also said she had “some concerns about the size and scale in various aspects.”

National Trust for Historic Preservation sues over ballroom project; A federal judge told Justice Department lawyers defending the White House position in December that plans for the ballroom must be submitted to the NCPC and the Commission on Fine Arts by the end of 2025.

Scharf told the Daily Mail after the hearing that he thought today’s presentation would likely meet the judge’s request, although more formal plans would come from the White House at a later date.

The president has made no secret of the fact that he is in favor of moving forward with the project, pointing to a planned visit by King Charles later this year. ‘It will most likely be hosted in a tent with portable toilets on the South Lawn,’ Scharf said.

‘This, to me, is not a good outlook for the United States,’ he said.

The White House hopes to fast-track the project to have it completed by 2028, Trump’s final year in office.