Trump’s White House plans include ballroom, arch and Lincoln Memorial pool overhaul

Donald Trump is moving ahead with three projects that would reshape some of Washington’s most symbolic ground: a 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom, a 250-foot triumphal arch near Arlington, and the restored Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the National Mall.

The ballroom, announced by the White House in July 2025, is planned for the East Wing site and is being cast as the new State Ballroom. The design calls for about 90,000 square feet and a seated capacity of 650, more than triple the East Room’s roughly 200-person limit. The project was first estimated at $200 million, but the scale of the buildout has raised concerns that the cost could climb well beyond that figure.

The arch proposal is even more overtly political in its symbolism. Renderings created by Harrison Design show a 250-foot monument planned for Memorial Circle on Columbia Island, near the Arlington Memorial Bridge and Arlington National Cemetery. NBC News reported that the structure itself would rise 166 feet, with a statue on top bringing the full height to 250 feet. The drawings include the words “One Nation Under God” and four golden lions at the base. The arch is being framed as a 250th-anniversary project tied to the nation’s Semiquincentennial, even as it has drawn scrutiny for its size and location inside the height-sensitive federal core of Washington.

Trump has already touched one of the city’s best-known civic spaces. The National Park Service said the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool rehabilitation went through Environmental Assessment and Section 106 review before closures began on April 10, 2026. The work was scheduled to continue through June 10, 2026, but the pool reopened on June 6 after more than $16 million in renovations. Trump said the pool had been painted to appear “American flag blue” ahead of the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence.

The administration has blamed vandalism for peeling paint and algae problems at the pool and said arrests and investigations were underway. Trump said six people had been arrested, but no public evidence was provided to support that claim. Together, the ballroom, arch and pool restoration put federal land, historic preservation and presidential image-making at the center of the capital’s next round of changes, with each project carrying a different price tag and a different claim on Washington’s visual landscape.