The $350,000,000, 90,000 sf Ball Room Will Be Trumps' Head Stone

[OldFriend]

Trump’s Ball Room project will be like every other Trump business, product, project, initiative, or roll-out - initially an over hyped fantasy and then a complete failure.

This time, however, because the Ball Room will be constructed in front of the entire U.S. population, its planning, construction, and operational failure will be front and center for everyone to see.

Here is how I see it.

Initial Project Planning: There has been no typical onsite due diligence associated with every other construction project in the world. No land surveys. No utility location flagging. No soil testing. No lead-based paint or materials testing. Plus, prior to demo, no building component donations to the Smithsonian, Habitat for Humanity or others (doors, casings, hardware, flooring, moldings, etc).
Conceptual Designs: The renderings Trump flashed on television were AI drawings, not the work of a credible architectural firm. Take a close look at the interior renderings – ten top tables (10 plates) with eight chairs. Take a close look at the floor plan and site plan – it is the work of a amateur. If constructed as designed, the project will be a complete failure.

Permits/Approvals: Apparently, none sought. None known.

Construction: Every part, every component, and every system of a custom building is first engineered (drawn and specified), then manufactured off-site. The rebar, the steel framing, the windows, the doors, the ac equipment, the elevators, the kitchen equipment, the carpeting do not exist today and must be manufactured. They are not sitting in a warehouse. The project requires a space program, design drawings, construction drawings with structural, M.E.P. and kitchen drawings, then shop drawings/cut sheets for every single component – including the seemingly simple things like toilets, door hardware, plumbing fixtures and light fixtures. Some of these parts, components and systems will take one year, or more, to manufacture and deliver once shop drawings are approved. For example, marble columns, marble flooring and marble cladding are not available from Home Depot. First, someone has to select the quarry, approve the integrity of the stone and the color palette. Then, material has to be cut from the quarry and transferred to fabrication shops. Even with modern CNC shops this will be a large custom order with a long lead time for delivery.

Operations: Imagine, 1,000 people showing up, in 500 cars, starting only 30 - 60 minutes before an event. There is no multi-lane vehicle pick-up and drop off location, or on-site parking. Every limo, livery car, or ride share will have to enter the White House grounds twice – first drop-off and then pick-up, with the secret service performing a full vehicle inspection (trunk and under body) on each vehicle, each time. The lobby/foyer will only accommodate a few hundred people. No coat check shown on the plan (DC has a winter). Unknown location, quantity, or size of lounges/restrooms. I didn’t even look for family, assisted, and/or all gender bathrooms. No bar stations. No service stations. No linen storage. No tech storage/equipment room. No security room. Looks like, the kitchen is in the basement, so everything to and from the tables must use an elevator. This facility will need a minimum of three commercial loading docks and a three to five surface loading spaces for deliveries (multiple provision trucks, booze and beer trucks, soft drink trucks, table/chair trucks, linen trucks, center piece/flower delivery, and the like). This facility will also need garbage, recycling and waste oil containers. No podium, stage or dance floor noted on the plans.

1000 guests. Everyone will love the experience. The first people served will be done with desert/coffee and dancing by the time the 500th guest is served. If you are in group 500 – 1000, might as well bring your own happy meal.

1,000 guests means a minimum staff of 100 but, more likely, 200 – management, security, operations, set-up, cleaning, chefs, cooks, kitchen help, wait staff, bar tenders, bussers, dishwashing, bathroom attendants, coat check, A/V/lighting, etc. The secret service will love checking all the employees in. All the employees will have to take public transit or ride shares to work, because there is no on-site staff parking.

This Ball Room is, simply, an large event venue with the accompanying delivery, traffic, guest and staffing issues. Trump will, likely, rent it out on weekends for corporate events, weddings, birthdays and mitzvahs which, of course, he will ‘head line’ or ‘crash’.

The White House will become the secondary building on the site.

The inevitable delays and sub-standard quality will be blamed on the architect, contractors, suppliers and workers who will end up penalized, sued and unpaid.

I hope Trump is gone before the building is done but, in the meantime, the entire U.S. population gets to watch Trumps slowly carve his own $350,000,000, 90,000 sf marble headstone.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. My guess: It will remain an open festering wound for months, maybe years. . . . nt

[dweller]

2. Pisswig's Folly

✌🏻

[Frasier Balzov]

3. Does he want to be interred there?

It wouldn't surprise me.

And this Republican Congress will be happy to make it a law if that's what Degenerate Donnie wants.

Which a future Democratic Congress and Democratic President will be expected to repeal.

So his bones can be exhumed and sent to his final resting place at his Miami Presidential Library.

[Scrivener7]

4. Unless we can get it pulled down the minute he is gone.

[Klarkashton]

5. I don't believe that there is anything other than some cartoons of the thing. The obvious answer to this is that it's

no more than a distraction from Epstein and other problems that he is having. The ham fisted demolition was the easy part.
This is a monster waste.