Virginia firm to build $200M White House ballroom co-funded by Trump

Declaring that President Donald Trump was solving a 150-year-old problem that plagued other presidents, the White House announced Thursday that it would add a $200 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom to the people’s mansion — with McLean‘s Clark Construction leading the building team.

That’s nearly twice the size of the actual White House, which is six stories high and has about 55,000 square feet of floor space.

According to the White House, Washington, D.C.-based McCrery Architects will lead the design process, and Dallas-based AECOM will be in charge of engineering for the structure, which would replace the East Wing.

“The project will begin in September 2025, and it is expected to be completed long before the end of President Trump’s term,” the statement said. Trump’s term is set to end January 2029.

Funding for the construction, the statement says, will come from Trump “and other patriot donors.” The ballroom will have capacity for 650 seated people, an increase from the East Room’s 200-person capacity, and it will be “substantially separated from the main building of the White House.” However, the announcement says, its architecture will be “almost identical” to that of the White House.

Clark Construction was the general contractor for several phases of Amazon’s HQ2 in Arlington County, as well as George Mason University’s Fuse tech hub on its Mason Square campus in Arlington, and it is overseeing the $800 million overhaul of Washington, D.C.’s Capital One Arena, where the Washington Wizards NBA team and Capitals NHL team play.

The firm has also performed renovations and expansions of federal government buildings, and a decade ago, it built the striking National Museum of African American History and Culture, which won the firm accolades for craftsmanship and construction.

Clark did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.