President Donald Trump is eyeing some potentially lasting changes around Washington, D.C.
Trump has plans – some of which are already underway – to give the city a makeover with a focus mostly on himself and his interests.
All of them encompass Trump’s desire to leave his imprint on the nation’s capital, though the intense legal pushback many of the projects face leaves their futures in question.
Here are some of the Trump proposals that have generated the most headlines – as well as lawsuits – and where they stand.
White House Ballroom
Trump and other conservatives renewed their push for the president’s proposed $400 million ballroom after a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in April, arguing that the event underscored security difficulties at large events involving the president outside of the White House.
They argued that the National Trust for Historic Preservation should drop its lawsuit against the ballroom, estimated to be a 90,000-square-foot structure.
Trust attorney Gregory Craig indicated that the group will not be dropping the lawsuit against the project, which has already seen the entire East Wing of the White House demolished. Complicating matters are legal questions over how the structure would be funded as well as the construction underneath the planned ballroom of a subterranean bunker complex that the administration insists is vital to national security. A flurry of federal court rulings has halted and resumed work ahead of a hearing next month.
“What Saturday’s awful event does not change is that the Constitution and multiple federal statutes require Congress to authorize construction of a ballroom on White House grounds, and that Congress has not done so,” Craig wrote to the Department of Justice in the week after the dinner at which the shooting occurred.
East Potomac Golf Links Renovation
Trump, an avid golfer, plans to renovate the busiest of D.C.’s three public golf courses.
Reports of major renovations set to begin this week at East Potomac Golf Links spurred concerns about the possible closure of the course.
However, East Potomac Golf Links, which includes two nine-hole courses and one 18-hole course, is still taking tee time bookings, but confusion persists. And Kevin Griess, the superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks for the Park Service, told U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes during a remote hearing on Monday that major renovations were not planned to start this week but added that a safety assessment was underway.
Reyes said she wouldn’t issue a temporary restraining order just yet in the case, but she did advise the federal government not to cut down more than 10 trees without providing notice. The golf course, which is situated on Hains Point between the Potomac River and the Washington Channel, is home to the nation’s first cherry blossoms.
Trump’s plans to renovate the golf course face a lawsuit arguing the Trump administration’s reconstruction of the park that included the East Potomac Golf Course would violate the congressional act that created the park in 1897. Trump has said he wants to make the East Potomac Golf Links a championship-caliber venue capable of hosting major tournaments.
Meanwhile, the dirt and debris from the East Wing demolition that the Trump administration has been piling up at East Potomac Golf Links tested positive for heavy metals, including lead and chromium.
Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has been drained and is undergoing renovations as a part of Trump’s makeover of D.C.
“Right now, it’s got no water in it because it was in terrible shape,” Trump said in April. “It was filthy, dirty, and it leaked like a sieve for many years.”
The reflecting pool will be resurfaced and the bottom will be repainted “American flag blue.” The renovations are expected to cost $1.5 million and be completed in a few weeks.
Trump’s excitement for the project was on display when he recently posted an image created with artificial intelligence of himself and a bikini-clad woman floating in the reflecting pool.
‘Triumphal Arch’
Trump has proposed a “United States Triumphal Arch” on a roundabout at one end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge.
The 250-foot “victory arch” would honor the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt proposed starting construction on it as a “fitting way” to mark the date in July.
A federal agency in April voted to move ahead with the projectwhich includes a Liberty-like figure atop the structure flanked by two eagles and guarded by four lions at the base.
The Trump administration has not released details on the cost or how it plans to pay for the arch.
A group of Vietnam War veterans sued over the project, arguing it would dramatically change the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery, disrupt historic sight lines and disrespect those buried there.
Trump’s Sculpture Garden
In another ode to America’s 250 years, Trump has dramatic plans for a National Garden of American Heroes that would include 250 life-size statues of notable Americans in West Potomac Park near the National Mall.
Congress approved $40 million for the project, but just the statues might end up costing more than that, by the Trump administration’s estimates. And construction hasn’t yet begun, raising questions about whether the project can be completed in the remainder of Trump’s term.
The list of people honored in Trump’s sculpture garden include historic figures like Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Betsy Ross, Andrew Jackson, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass. But it also skews heavily toward the country’s recent past and features a bevy of pop culture figures, entertainers and athletes well-known to Trump’s generation, including Bob Hope, Vince Lombardi, Shirley Temple, Kobe Bryant and Alex Trebek.