The Trump administration is advancing plans for a vast underground security screening complex just steps from the White House, reshaping how visitors access the seat of executive power.
According to the Daily Caller, renderings for the 33,000-square-foot facility, to be constructed beneath Sherman Park south of the Treasury building, appeared Friday in a preliminary agenda for the National Capital Planning Commissions (NCPC) April 2 meeting. The proposal reflects a long-term security investment that favors permanent, hardened infrastructure over the ad hoc measures that have characterized much of the post-9/11 era.
Guests would enter the complex via a ramp at 15th Street and E Street and proceed into a 5,000-square-foot recessed entry plaza designed to keep foot traffic off neighboring sidewalks, according to The Hill. Inside, seven processing lanes would replace the temporary trailers and tents the Secret Service has relied on since 2005, a move likely to streamline screening while restoring order to the surrounding streetscape.
The project follows President Donald Trumps decision last fall to demolish the East Wing to make room for a new ballroom, a move consistent with his emphasis on both security and ceremonial grandeur. Sherman Park had long served as the gathering point where tourists waited for security checks before walking to that entrance, Politico reported, but visitors are now funneled to Lafayette Park on the opposite side of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Ground could break as soon as August, with the White House targeting a July 2028 opening, six months before Trump leaves office, according to Politico, underscoring the administrations intent to see the project through on its own timeline. The Executive Office of the President, the Secret Service and the National Park Service are jointly overseeing the effort, signaling a coordinated federal approach rather than a piecemeal bureaucratic fix.
A second, roughly 4,000-square-foot structure along East Executive Avenue would serve as an entry point for credentialed staff and contractors and also function as the exit route for departing guests, The Hill reported. At the same April 2 session, the NCPC will also debate and vote on the administrations proposed 90,000-square-foot ballroom on the former East Wing footprint, while the statue of Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman will remain in place, preserving a key historical landmark even as the complex modernizes around it.
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