President Donald Trump said Friday that he plans to build a statue garden of “American heroes” at a park location along the Potomac River near the Tidal Basin in Washington.
In a social media post, Trump said the “National Garden of American Heroes” would be placed in West Potomac Park, a National Park Service site that currently hosts a range of athletic fields between the Potomac River and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.
Trump said the current site is a “totally BARREN field of Prime Waterfront Real Estate” that he would improve with “one of my great projects.”
Initially raised as a concept during his first administration, Trump revived the heroes garden idea last year, with a plan to build 250 statues of various American historical figures. He had originally suggested that the statutes be ready by this summer, in time for celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Trump said in his Friday post that the figures would range from “Founding Fathers, Military Warriors, Religious Leaders, Civil Rights Champions, World Class Athletes, Artists, Entertainers, and MORE.”
The garden is one of many projects the president has undertaken to remake Washington, often while accelerating through the standard — and typically lengthy — review and public input processes.
Details about the garden, such as a specific design proposal and a construction timeline, have not been provided by the White House. The president’s post included an aerial image of the Tidal Basin and surrounding area.
The proposal for the statute garden has not been reviewed by the National Capital Planning Commission and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which consider proposals to build or alter projects within Washington’s federal core. Congress has also not approved locating the project in West Potomac Park, which is in the “Reserve,” an area where lawmakers must approve new “commemorative works,” said Sarah Weicksel, executive director of the American Historical Association.
Congress did allocate $40 million for the garden last year in Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Thomas Luebke, the secretary for the fine arts commission, said the project has not yet been submitted for review but “will in the future.” Trump handpicked all seven members of the commission earlier this year.
A spokesperson for the Interior Department, which includes NPS, said the president has brought a “builder’s expertise” to changing Washington.
Davis Ingle, a White House spokesperson, said the garden “will be built to reflect the awesome splendor of our country’s timeless exceptionalism. President Trump continues to beautify and honor our Nation’s Capital during America’s historic semiquincentennial celebration.”
Neither the White House nor Interior responded to questions about review processes or a timeline for the garden’s construction. But building a statue garden in time for the country’s 250th anniversary this summer was always going to be an ambitious goal. Along with the reviews, a major challenge would be that the country lacks sufficient skilled sculptors and fine art foundries to make that many statues quickly, POLITICO previously reported.
The chosen location is not far from East Potomac Park, where Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum want to revamp an existing public golf course. Burgum shared a new design for that project Thursday.
The administration has also been pursuing rapid renovations of other Washington historic sites, such as building a ballroom at the White House, installing a blue liner at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and proposing a 250-foot arch on the Virginia side of Memorial Bridge.
Charles Birnbaum, president of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, said the required historic reviews for D.C. projects are intended to avoid, minimize and mitigate adverse effects of new proposals.
“You have to work with the history of the place that has been designated, and clearly that’s not happening,” Birnbaum said. He said Washington’s history as a carefully planned work of civic art is systematically “being diminished by one project after another by this administration.”
Ed Stierli, the mid-Atlantic senior regional director at the National Parks Conservation Association, said any changes to the National Mall area should include public input. He pointed out that West Potomac Park, which is adjacent to the mall, is reservable by the hour and is popular with local residents for recreation, sports and demonstrations.
Stierli said architect Pierre L’Enfant’s original concept of Washington in the 1790s included extensive “open and democratic space,” which is reflected on much of the National Mall.
“That’s what this space is designed to be and has been now for over a century,” he said.
