White House East Wing to be demolished within days: Trump announces staggering cost for ballroom project

The entire East Wing of the White House will be demolished to make way for the construction of a massive new ballroom which will now cost $300 million, President Donald Trump confirmed Wednesday. Trump confirmed to officials that the White House’s East Wing will be demolished “within days”.

In discussion with reporters in the Oval Office, Donald Trump was asked by reporters to respond to the widespread surprise that the entire East Wing is being torn down. Trump said the wing he described as a separate building “was never thought of as being much; it was a very small building”.

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“Rather than allowing that to hurt a very expensive, beautiful building,” he continued. “In order to do it properly, we had to take down the existing structure.” Trump showed off renderings of what the White House grounds will look like when the project is completed in 2029. The president claimed “certain areas are being left” and that “little sections of footings and various other things” from the existing structure, originally built in 1902, would be used.

“We determined that, after really a tremendous amount of study with some of the best architects in the world, we determined that really knocking it down” would be the best path forward, Trump said.

White House East Wing to be demolished

At the Oval Office interaction, Trump pointed at a model of the new ballroom on a table in front of him, and a new structure leading to the ballroom in the location where the East Wing used to be. He added: “The way it was shown, it looked like we were touching the White House. We don’t touch the White House.”

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“That’s a bridge, a glass bridge going from the White House to the ballroom,” Trump said, of the new structure that will replace the East Wing. Trump said the result is “going to be probably the finest ballroom ever built” and that the ballroom is “being paid for 100% by me and some friends of mine”.

The entire East Wing of the White House will be demolished “within days,” according to two Trump administration officials, NBC reported. The demolition is a significant expansion of the ballroom construction project from what President Donald Trump said this summer. Plans for Trump’s 90,000 sq ft ballroom were made public in the late summer, with Trump saying he would personally fund the $200m construction. “Just another way to spend my money for this construction,” he said at the time.

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What Trump said earlier

When he first unveiled plans to build the 90,000-square-foot ballroom, he suggested that the structure would be nestled near the existing East Wing and not replace it entirely. “It won’t interfere with the current building. It’ll be near it but not touching it,” he said in July. “And pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of.”

The cost of the project, which Trump claims will be entirely paid for through private donations, was initially estimated at $200 million, later jumped to $250 million and is now at $300 million — $100 million more than the original estimate.

“We’re making it a little bigger. It will be top of the line, as good as it can get anywhere in the world,” Trump told NBC News last month.

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On Wednesday, the president revealed the newest price tag, “about $300 million.” The president noted that the East Wing has undergone extensive renovations in the past, with its current form dating back to 1942, making it one of the newest parts of the White House complex.

“You know, the East Wing was not much. It was not much left from the original,” the president said.

“It was never thought of as being much. It was a very small building, and rather than allowing that to hurt, a very expensive, beautiful building that, frankly, they’ve been after for years,” Trump added, going on to pledge that the new building will “be one of the great ballrooms anywhere in the world.”

A White House official told The New York Post that the East Wing “is being modernized from its 1902 and 1942 constructions.” “The scope and size of the project has always been subject to vary as the process developed,” the official added.