Trump demos WH for his ballroom

[mister_coffee]

He's looking a little rough these days too:

[PAL]

I think I was being sarcastic, but actually did not want to post that, but looks like it went through anyway. As with construction we know that price is going to go up but is anyone going to reveal the actual cost of the project. Probably not.

[mister_coffee]

If the project is inadequately specified it could easily go far past $3300 per foot.

[Rideback]

As the piece says, it's $3,333 a square foot, Pal, that's not what most would consider 'a deal'....

[PAL]

$350 million is a good deal. I think I read it did go up to $350. Their costs for materials and labor must not be as high as ours are in the Valley for a medium or smaller size house.

[Rideback]

.An architect named Andrew Kerr just laid out why Trump’s White House ballroom project is basically bull***. And his math checks out.
Here’s the deal. Trump’s now saying this 90,000 square foot ballroom will cost $300 million. Do the math on that - it’s $3,333 per square foot. For context, $1,000 per square foot is already astronomical for construction. We’re talking about a price tag that makes zero sense unless you’re building on the moon.
Kerr points out that if this thing actually follows classical proportions like the renderings suggest, you’re looking at a footprint about 380 feet by 235 feet. That’s longer than a football field and 1.5 times as wide. For a ballroom that’s supposed to hold 999 people - which by the way, started at 650 people when this was first announced in July and magically grew to accommodate almost 1,000.
Let’s talk about what you actually need for 999 people according to Kerr. At a comfortable 20 square feet per person for a banquet - which is pretty generous - you need 20,000 square feet. Throw in another 10,000 for support functions and 10,000 for pre-function space, and you’re at 40,000 square feet. That’s less than half of the supposed 90,000 square feet. So what’s the other 50,000 square feet for?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
The renderings are also suspect. Kerr notes that the interior and exterior views don’t match. The White House is 70 feet tall to the roof. The interior renderings show a room about 100 by 200 feet with a 20-foot ceiling. But the exterior renderings show a footprint 4.5 times larger than that. The math doesn’t work.
Plus - there are no actual architectural drawings. Just some pretty renderings that could have been whipped up by junior staff in a week or two. That’s it. No construction documents, no engineered plans, no detailed specifications. For a $300 million project that’s supposedly breaking ground and already has demolition crews tearing down the East Wing.
For context, typical commercial construction in 2025 runs $240 to $870 per square foot depending on location and building type. Even high-rise offices in expensive cities like DC max out around $870 to $1,000 per square foot. Trump’s ballroom is coming in at more than three times that amount.
Let’s also talk about what this space is actually for. The current East Room holds 200 people for state dinners. So we’re supposedly building something 1.6 times the size of the entire White House residence to accommodate 5 times the capacity of the East Room.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
The architect behind this project? James McCrery - whose firm specializes in Catholic churches. His biggest project to date was the Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in Knoxville, Tennessee. His other federal government work includes designing a pedestal for a Ronald Reagan statue and a gift shop at the Supreme Court. That’s it. Now he’s supposedly designing a $300 million addition to the most famous building in America that’s bigger than the White House itself.
The firm’s website is basically empty - just a contact form for new commissions and a slideshow. No detailed project portfolio, no team information, nothing that would inspire confidence in a firm handling a project of this magnitude. Even their Instagram is bare - “Committed to Tradition and Excellence” in the bio, but zero posts.
Here’s what makes this whole thing smell like bull***: The project was announced in July with a $200 million price tag. By September, Trump was saying $250 million. Now in October, we’re at $300 million - a 50% cost increase before construction even really starts. That’s not how legitimate projects work. That’s how grifts work.
The timeline is also absurd. They announced this in July, started demolition in September, and claim they’ll have it done before Trump’s term ends in January 2029. That’s less than four years to design, permit, and construct a 90,000 square foot addition to a National Historic Landmark. For context, the Truman renovation of the White House - which kept only the exterior walls standing - took nearly four years from 1948 to 1952. And that was with full congressional funding and proper oversight.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
Now, let me ask you this - if the timeline is correct - why the hell would the most selfish man on earth spend 3.5 years building a ballroom that won’t be ready to use until the month he moves out of the White House?

[mister_coffee]

East wing pretty much demolished, and trees that are 200+ years old removed as well:

[Rideback]

Stonekettle Station:
"To Americans, the White House represents American history.
ALL of American history.
Much of which is awe inspiring.
But some of which is not so great.
When some Americans look upon that building, they see it was constructed in no small part by enslaved peoples, they see Manifest Destiney, the genocide of native Americans, sexism, the incarceration of Japanese Americans, wars started on lies (more than one, FFS), kids in cages, etc.
Our history isn't all bad, depending how how you define "our," but some of it is. The point being that Trump's destruction of the White House's East Wing doesn't mean the same thing to some as it might to others.
And that is perfectly valid.
History is personal to each of us.
History is personal, but it is also SHARED.
It's not borders that define a nation, but its history.
You can't rewrite the unpleasant parts of history without erasing the PEOPLE who made it.
Erasing the past doesn't make a better future.
Those personal ways we view our complicated shared history should be impetus for discussion, for learning and education, for understanding, for inspiration not to repeat the mistakes of our ancestors, and most especially to be a BETTER nation for ALL of our fellows in the present and in the future.
Instead, for Trump and the racist nationalism of his belligerent MAGA ideology, the White House has become just another gaudy symbol of shallow reactionary patriotism, the giant flags flapping from the back of a ridiculously overbuilt pickup, a flashy gilded casino full of noise and desperation, the spangled leotard of a professional wrestler and the big hair of a country fair beauty pageant.
For Trump, the White House isn't about a SHARED American history held in trust for the future. Like everything else, it's about HIM, nothing more than a chance to put his ketchup stained stamp on OUR history.
The thing is that history itself is neither good or bad.
It's what we DO with it that matters.
Like his destruction of the Smithsonian, the Rose Garden, the Kennedy Center, our National Parks, democracy, Trump is bulldozing our past and paving over our history to build yet another tacky monument to himself.
What Trump is doing is what all sad little forgotten tyrants do.
____
“If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree. ”
-- Michael Crichton

[Rideback]

Alt National Park Service:

"We’ve received a lot of questions about Trump’s demolition of the White House East Wing.
Here’s how the process is supposed to work:
1. Initial Proposal: The White House is managed by the National Park Service (NPS) but used by the Executive Office of the President (EOP). Any proposed change, even by a sitting president, begins internally through the Office of the Curator and the White House Facilities Management Division.
2. Historic Review: The NPS, as custodian of the White House under the Presidential Residence Act and National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), must review all alterations for compliance with Section 106 of the NHPA. This requires assessing potential impacts on historic and cultural resources in consultation with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) and the D.C. State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO).
3. Planning & Environmental Oversight: The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) evaluates all major federal projects in the National Capital Region, including work on the White House grounds, for design, planning, and environmental impacts under NEPA (the National Environmental Policy Act). Public comment and design reviews are part of that process.
4. Aesthetic Review: The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) reviews and advises on the design and appearance of any exterior modifications to the White House or its grounds.
5. Final Authorization: After approvals from NPS, NCPC, and CFA, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the White House Chief Usher / Facilities Management Office finalize funding, scheduling, and logistics.
Only after completing this full process could any major construction or demolition legally begin.
Yet Trump ignored every step, acting unilaterally through executive order, bypassing oversight, and ordering demolition as if he were a monarch. The result: the people’s house, altered without the people’s consent.
More details:
Section 107, let’s talk about it.
The above process has always been the process taken, and here’s why.
Section 107 of the National Historic Preservation Act exempts the White House, the U.S. Capitol, and the Supreme Court from being legally required to go through the Act’s formal Section 106 review. In other words, the law doesn’t automatically force those branches to follow the same procedures as other federal buildings. That exemption exists only because each branch of government controls its own seat of power, it was never intended as a free pass to ignore preservation, planning, or environmental rules altogether.
In practice, every administration since the 1960s has followed the same review structure out of duty, accountability, and executive-branch policy. The White House is still federal property, managed by the National Park Service under the Presidential Residence Act and subject to Executive Order 11593, which requires federal agencies to protect and consult on historic resources. Major exterior or site work still triggers National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) and U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) design reviews, along with NEPA environmental assessments. Any project involving government resources must also comply with the Anti-Deficiency Act and federal ethics rules on funding and gifts.
So yes, Section 107 means the NHPA can’t force compliance, but presidents are still bound by a network of executive orders, planning statutes, environmental laws, and constitutional duties. That’s why the process described isn’t optional, it’s the framework that has always protected the people’s house from unilateral or politically motivated alteration.
These executive orders:
- Executive Order 11593 (1971) – Protection and Enhancement of the Cultural Environment - Requires all federal agencies (including the Executive Office of the President) to “locate, inventory, and nominate to the National Register all properties under their control” and to consult with the Secretary of the Interior before altering historically significant structures. (Demolishing part of the White House without such consultation would conflict with this order.)
- Executive Order 12148 (1979), delegates emergency and historic property responsibilities to the Department of the Interior, reaffirming that federal agencies must protect historic resources even when exemptions exist."

[mister_coffee]

[Rideback]

and ICE agent applicants are lying on their applications and failing basic fitness tests

https://aaronparnas.substack.com/