Bloomberg - As he settles into his second term in office, President Donald Trump has embraced his power to refashion some of Washington’s most iconic places in his own image — renovations that come with costly price tags.
He’s outfitted the Oval Office with elaborate gold fixtures, vermeil figurines and gilded frames, all ubiquitous elements of the decor in his New York tower. He’s mused about ripping up the Rose Garden lawn for a hard-surface patio reminiscent of the hangout spot at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Elsewhere inside the White House, which during his first term he described as a “real dump,” Trump wants to build a $100 million ballroom.
At least one cabinet secretary is also pitching their own real-estate reno: Housing Secretary Scott Turner told Fox News on Monday that the US Department of Housing and Urban Development needs new digs.
“HUD is known as the ugliest building in DC,” said Turner, referring to the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building, a Brutalist headquarters designed by the architect Marcel Breuer completed in 1968. “Which is not a mantra I like.”
That building is overdue for a gut-level rehab: Deferred maintenance for mechanical systems, HVAC, elevators and other needs adds up to more than $500 million in projected costs, according to an agency plan seen by Bloomberg CityLab. Another estimate from the US General Services Administration estimates $94 million in costs within just the next five years.
Plans from Trump and his allies for expensive real estate projects are at odds with much of the work Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is undertaking, including cutting as much as $1 trillion in federal spending and shrinking the government’s real estate portfolio. However, despite Trump’s embrace of Musk’s work to reshape the national budget, the president has continued to advocate for a certain federal aesthetic.
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