The Commission of Fine Arts has approved plans for a new ballroom in the East Wing of the White House during a meeting on Thursday (February 19). The commision was not scheduled to vote on the final approval during the meeting, but decided to fast track the final vote after reviewing the updated architectural plans.
Commissioner James McCrery, who was the initial architect on the project, abstained from voting, saying it would be “inappropriate” for him to cast a vote.
President Donald Trump appointed all seven members of the commission.
While public comments were mostly against the construction of the 90,000-square-foot ballroom, six of the seven panel members voted in favor of the plans.
“Mind you, in more than two decades of case work here, for me, I’ve never seen as much public engagement on this,” the panel’s secretary Thomas Luebke said. “We literally have gotten, just in the past week or so, more than 2,000 various messages — way too much to go through individually.”
After McCrery was sidelined from the project, architect Shalom Baranes was tabbed to make changes to the plans, including the removal of a pediment on the south side of the ball room.
The project is expected to cost around $400 million and will be paid for by private donors.
President Trump applauded the approval in a post on Truth Social.
“The Commission of Fine Arts just approved, unanimously, 6 to 0, with one recusal because he had a conflict in that he worked professionally on the job, the White House Ballroom. Great accolades were paid to the building’s beauty and scale. Thank you to the members of the Commission!”
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