President Donald Trump’s massive July 4 celebration touting the country’s 250th anniversary may be over, but his interest in leaving an indelible mark on the nation’s capital is still playing out.
The characteristically grandiose projects include a 250-foot-tall triumphal arch proposed along the Potomac River, the remake of one of the city’s historic public golf courses and still-evolving plans to build a statue garden memorializing hundreds of figures from American history.
The Washington makeover has sparked fierce opposition from Trump critics, particularly over the estimated $600 million White House ballroom that would replace the historic East Wing, which the president ordered demolished last year. But the administration’s focus on the aesthetics of the nation’s capital has also won some local praise across the city after long-dormant fountains managed by the National Park Service began flowing again.
To critics and champions alike, the slew of projects promise — or threaten — to make Trump one of the most influential forces on the city’s architecture and landscape in decades.
“We have the positive things, which are trying to fix the fountains and statues and whatnot,” said Rebecca Miller, executive director of the DC Preservation League about Trump’s focus on capital renovations. But the president is also setting a dangerous precedent by ignoring historical expertise, preservation law and public input, she said. The league is part of several lawsuits against the administration’s actions in the city.
“These spaces are owned by the public,” Miller said. “This is not his personal portfolio to do with what he chooses.”
The Interior Department, which is carrying out many of the president’s Washington projects, praised the president’s efforts.
“President Donald J. Trump has done more to make our nation’s capital a shining beacon than any other president in the history of this country,” the agency said in a statement.
A former real estate developer who’s erected golf courses and luxury hotels from Scotland to the Maldives, Trump pledged more than a dozen times on his 2024 presidential campaign trail to overhaul Washington.
“We will rebuild our once-great cities, including our capital in Washington, D.C.,” he said on Jan. 19, 2025, the day before his inauguration. “We’re going to beautify it. We’re going to make it the most beautiful capital in the world.”
Some of the president’s initiatives have encountered setbacks, including the addition of his name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. A federal judge ordered it removed in May.
Other projects have been more successful, though no less tangled in public opinion or litigation. Several face regulatory hurdles, even as the president’s appointment of allies to key oversight boards have made those steps easier to clear.
For many projects, one key question remains: How will all of this be paid for? The White House has tapped both private donations and federal funds to pay from some of these projects but the exact cost of Trump’s ambitions is still unclear. The National Endowment for the Humanities, for example, has set aside $15 million to help fund the arch, but even as planning for the proposal has ramped up, a full funding source hasn’t been disclosed.
Here are the most significant presidential projects in the District of Columbia that are still in flux.
Arc de Trump
Trump’s plan to build a triumphal arch to rival the famous Arc de Triomphe in Paris cleared an initial hurdle last week at the National Capital Planning Commission, setting up a clearer runway for the administration’s plans.
But the commission, which is dominated by Trump appointees, still must overcome legal hurdles before it can give the project final approval. Chief among those is how to get around the monument’s proposed size.
At 250 feet tall, when counting a 60-foot-high gold statue of a winged figure that resembles Lady Liberty, the structure flouts the Height of Buildings Act, which generally restricts structures in the District of Columbia to a height of 130 feet.
The Interior Department argued in comments submitted to the commission last week that the law does not apply to federal buildings, an interpretation of the 1910 statute that commission Chair Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary appointed to the panel by Trump, has also embraced.
That stance breaks with the commission’s longstanding reading of the law, according to a brief submitted last week by Meghan Hottel-Cox, general counsel for group. The planning body’s staff also recommended ahead of last week’s meeting that the Trump administration revise its project to comply with the height law.
Commissioner Evan Cash, who represents the chair of the Council of the District of Columbia, cast the lone vote against preliminary approval last week.
“I’m not willing to lend my vote to plans that could have the effect of upending decades of N.C.P.C. practice and the century-old height framework, all without congressional authorization or commemorative works process, for a project that, as far as I can tell, has only one real advocate,” Cash said.
Cash’s concern about congressional approval also underscores the project’s other major legal challenge: the Commemorative Works Act.
A lawsuit brought by veterans of the Vietnam War argues the law requires congressional approval for any new commemorative work in the area where the arch is proposed — a traffic circle outside Arlington National Cemetery. The administration has rebuffed that argument, citing a more than 100-year-old congressional report that contemplated erecting two columns in the circle.
Davis Ingle, a White House spokesperson, said the arch will be “one of the most iconic landmarks not only in Washington D.C. but throughout the world” and honor America’s veterans in the Arlington National Cemetery.
Lafayette Park
Lafayette Park, which sits on the north side of the White House, has been partially blocked off to the public since January for renovations. Though the White House said the renovations are complete, the public has yet to view them in full.
The blockade could remain in place until July 31, according to the National Park Service, and could even be a regular feature under a new proposal from the White House.
In April, the ornamental fountains in the park started running again after more than a decade out of operation following a $17.6 million restoration project. The no-bid contract was awarded to Clark Construction Group, which is also overseeing Trump’s East Wing ballroom project at the White House.
On Friday, the Trump administration revealed plans to install permanent fencing around the park. The proposed permanent fence is 8 to 10 feet high and would exclude or alter “climbable elements” like close picket spacing and c-scrolls.
The concept includes permanent security upgrades, such as monitoring systems and alarms, which are meant to “easily prohibit public access during times of heightened security,” such as protests, and “reduce opportunities for vandalism, trampling, unauthorized encampments, damage to vegetation and turf,” the proposal said.
The plan, supported by the Secret Service, Interior and the National Park Service, is facing pushback from lawmakers and advocates. Last Thursday, District of Columbia Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) introduced a bill to prohibit the fencing at Lafayette Square Park.
“Permanent fencing at Lafayette Square would send the wrong message to the nation and the world by continuing to transform our democracy from one that is accessible and of the people to one that is exclusive and fearful of its own citizens,” Norton said in a press release.
NPS public golf course
Another key project for Trump involves one of his personal passions: golf.
The president has talked about transforming East Potomac Golf Links, the most prominent of three public golf courses in the city owned by NPS, into a major tournament-ready course with the help of golf architect Tom Fazio, who previously designed the president’s personal courses.
The president announced last month that the redevelopment would commence Sept. 1. Photos from Trump’s tour of East Potomac reveal that the plan would turn the links’ three-course layout into a single 18-hole championship course, The Washington Post reported.
“The President and his extraordinary team will redevelop this decrepit golf course in our nation’s capital to restore its glamour and prestige,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers.
Upgraded tennis infrastructure may be in store. On the Katie Miller podcast last week, Burgum said, “I know President Trump has got ideas about bringing the tennis back to its original capabilities as well, but he’s got great ideas about just bringing stuff back and then making it better than it ever was before.”
The project is facing opposition on many fronts.
The DC Preservation League and two residents filed a lawsuit against Interior in February, arguing that planned efforts will undermine public access and bypass review processes. While Judge Ana Reyes refused to stop Trump’s plans for the course, she demanded that the administration commit to not going ahead with plans until the matter was resolved in court.
Last week, four Democratic senators from the Washington area wrote a letter pressing Interior leadership to provide more details on the proposed renovations, including how the Trump administration plans to keep fees affordable and preserve public access, as well as how the project will comply with environmental and historic preservation laws.
NPS last year canceled a 50-year lease with National Links Trust, a nonprofit that runs all three Washington golf courses and had plans to renovate them. The administration accused the group of failing to pay rent, a point the nonprofit vehemently denies as the rent was allowed to be offset by investments into the parks.
Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool
Trump’s efforts to turn the pool into a stunning, and leak-proof, feature ahead of July 4 has captivated public attention after a series of high-profile challenges.
The pool was drained this week to assess and repair damages to a recently installed liner, the latest hiccup in the administration’s troubled renovation.
Shortly after the liner was installed by a NPS contractor, the pool experienced a massive algae bloom. Amid efforts to remove the unsightly green algae ahead of July 4 celebrations, the recently installed pool liner also began to peel off.
Costs for the project, which included at least two non-bid contracts, have ballooned from roughly $3 million promised by the president in April to roughly $15 million for the liner and another $1.7 million for “nanobubbler” ozone technology to clean the pool’s water.
On Tuesday, black mesh was fixed to temporary fencing around the pool, shrouding it from view as the National Park Service and contractors undertook repairs.
Trump has blamed the failed liner on vandalism.
“The floor of the pool was cut and then pulled upward, with great force, by these thugs,” Trump said in a Truth Social post Monday. National Park Service emptied the water to fix the watertight basin, which will be “refilled and put back into service soon,” he said.
Several people have been arrested for alleged vandalism, including former Olympian David Hearn, who pleaded not guilty to a felony charge. Hearn said he only touched a piece of the liner and let go when instructed by a park worker.
NPS faces a lawsuit from a nonprofit group that contends work on the reflecting pool violated the National Historic Preservation Act by tackling a renovation without first consulting historic experts. The case is before a Trump-appointed judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Garden of American Heroes
The least advanced of the Trump administration’s Washington projects, the statue garden as currently proposed includes 250 life-size statues of former presidents, civil rights leaders, artists, entrepreneurs and military generals. But the president has long struggled to find a place to put it.
In a May social media post, Trump said the statue garden will be built in West Potomac Park, an area managed by the National Park Service that currently holds athletic fields and cherry-tree lined walkways along the Potomac River. But that plan isn’t certain.
A coalition of advocacy and historical organizations sued the Trump administration to stop that from happening, arguing that the plan violates the Commemorative Works Act, which requires congressional approval of any new monuments or commemorative works on the National Mall. The park where it would be located is a popular recreation site for many District of Columbia residents.
The mall is the central civic space in the nation’s capital, originally envisioned by Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s design of the city in 1791.
Trump in May defended putting the statues in West Potomac Park, calling it a “totally BARREN field of Prime Waterfront Real Estate.”
Ingle, the White House spokesperson, defended the garden as one of the president’s commitments to honor the country.
“President Trump’s National Garden of American Heroes will be built to reflect the awesome splendor of our country’s timeless exceptionalism,” he said. “President Trump continues to beautify and honor our Nation’s Capital during America’s historic 250th anniversary celebrations.”
A big ballroom
New banners were unfurled recently to cover columns that are being repaired on the White House, but a massive hole still gapes on the east side of the presidential residence where Trump is building a massive ballroom for state events.
The White House ballroom project, a leading priority for the president, first captivated public attention with the sudden demolition of the East Wing last year. It is perhaps Trump’s most significant proposed change to the Washington landscape, along with the proposed arch.
A federal judge halted construction on the ballroom in March, after historic preservationists sued the president for damaging the White House, a National Historic Landmark. But a District of Columbia circuit panel quickly reversed that ruling, allowing construction to continue while the court case plays out.
The White House has said the ballroom will be funded through donations. Federal funds, topping $380 million, will however be used on security measures identified by the Secret Service.
In May, Department of Homeland Security Director Markwayne Mullin and Secret Service Director Sean Curran asked GOP lawmakers to provide $1 billion to the Secret Service in part to fund the East Wing security measures.
Trump has said the ballroom should be finished before the end of his term.
Ingle, the White House spokesperson, said in a statement that the project is “inextricably tied to the security of the President, the White House grounds and the certain security infrastructure assets,” a reference to the secure bunker that long existed beneath the East Wing and recent attempts on the president’s life.
