New Plan: Ballroom Will Be as Tall as the White House

President Trump's planned state ballroom at the White House is now designed to rise to the same height as the historic mansion, the project's lead architect told a federal planning panel Thursday. That's just one of the changes the Trump administration has decided on or is considering that Shalom Baranes told the National Capital Planning Commission about on Thursday. He said plans now call for the ballroom structure to be about 60 feet high on its north side and 70 feet on its south side, matching the main residence—a departure from preservation guidance that typically calls for additions to be lower than the primary building, the Washington Post reports.

• Other additions: After announcing that the new ballroom would be connected to the East Room of the White House by a two-story colonnade, Baranes said that might require another change, per ABC News. "The White House is therefore considering the idea of a modest one-story addition to the West Wing colonnade, which would serve to restore a sense of symmetry around the original central pavilion," he said. The addition that Trump calls the "Upper West Wing" is being designed now, the architect told the panel. Also on the drawing table are an office suite for the first lady and a rebuilt movie theater.

• Size: The building's footprint will be roughly 45,000 square feet, with the ballroom itself about 22,000 square feet and able to host around 1,000 people. The White House has repeatedly described a 90,000-square-foot project; Baranes said that larger figure includes a second floor.
• The process: The Trump administration is pushing for approvals from the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts in just over two months, far faster than past major projects.
• The teardown: Preserving the East Wing, which was demolished in October, wasn't feasible, a White House official told the commission, because of various problems. "The colonnade was structurally unstable," said Josh Fisher, director of the White House Office of Administration, per CBS News. "The roof systems had exceeded their service life, and the underpinnings were not sufficient to support the necessary upgrades."

• The commission: Phil Mendelson, a commission member who's DC Council chairman, expressed concern that the addition could overwhelm the executive mansion, per the Post. He didn't sound sold on a taller West Wing colonnade solving the problem. "It's just so imbalanced," Mendelson said. When he asked Baranes if the ballroom could maybe be not so tall, the architect answered that it's "possible, not impossible." Commission Vice Chair Stuart Levenbach endorsed the plans, saying that he'd gone to a Hanukkah party at the White House that seemed crowded, though there weren't that many people there.