President Trump said in a weekend interview that the White House ballroom will be a “little bigger” than initially planned.
In a telephone interview Saturday with NBC News, Trump said the ballroom will have a capacity of 900 people, nearly 40 percent larger than the estimates provided in late July by the White House.
“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.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in late July that construction was set to begin on the ballroom in September and would conclude before Trump’s term ended in January 2029. She estimated the ballroom would cost $200 million and have the capacity to seat 650 people.
She said the ballroom would be built adjacent to the White House where the East Wing sits. She said the East Wing would be “modernized” and offices there would be temporarily relocated during construction.
“The White House state ballroom will be a much needed and exquisite addition of 90,000 square feet,” Leavitt said this summer, saying the larger seated capacity would eliminate the need for a “large and unsightly tent” to host state dinners and other large events.
Trump reiterated in the NBC News interview that the cost would be shouldered, at least in part, by donors, or “patriots,” as he referred to them.
Source: The Hill - News
