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WASHINGTON — A federal panel on Thursday approved the final design and construction plans for a new underground screening center for White House visitors, pushing the project one step closer to breaking ground at a time when protective concerns around President Donald Trump remain elevated. The facility, to be built beneath Sherman Park, is targeted for a July 2028 opening and would finally replace the arrangement of tents and trailers that has handled entry checks for years. (July 17, 2025)
The vote by the National Capital Planning Commission clears what is effectively the last major federal design review for a project developed jointly by the Executive Office of the President, the U.S. Secret Service, and the National Park Service. Because the building site sits on federal parkland managed by the Park Service, the agency has been involved in the project from the start.
As outlined to the commission, the 33,000-square-foot facility will be built entirely below grade at Sherman Park, a plot just southeast of the White House and directly south of the Treasury building. It will process several groups: public tour participants, guests attending large events, staff, and contractors doing business on the White House grounds.
White House tours remain one of the few ways the public can see the executive mansion up close, and the screening line has long been the most tedious part of that experience. For decades, tourists assembled in Sherman Park and then moved through trailer-like screening buildings before walking to the East Wing entrance. Bicycle racks and other improvised barriers were part of the setup, along with tents that offered minimal shelter from the weather. The administration argues the permanent center will close the security gaps inherent in that ad-hoc arrangement while giving visitors a smoother, more orderly start to their White House visit.
That argument has gained force over the past year. Trump has been the target of multiple assassination attempts, two during the 2024 campaign and a third this past April at a Washington dinner with White House journalists. In May, Secret Service officers fatally shot a man who opened fire near a White House security checkpoint.
Those incidents have underscored what security officials have long said privately: the visitor screening operation at the White House is one of the most exposed assignments in federal law enforcement. The Capitol, for instance, has routed visitors through a purpose-built underground center since 2008. The White House has continued to make do with temporary buildings and shifting outdoor lines, a gap that has drawn criticism for years.
The visitor flow has also been in transition. The White House tore down the East Wing last fall to build a ballroom, a signature project of Trump's second term. With the old entrance gone, tours and event attendees now gather near Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue, before being processed and escorted to the White House grounds.
The screening center's architect said Thursday that the design was adjusted in places to coordinate with the ballroom now rising at the East Wing site. The two projects are meant to be viewed as part of the same reworking of the complex, one that pairs upgraded security with a more deliberate aesthetic direction. The ballroom gives the White House a larger space for entertaining; the screening center ensures the people arriving for those events can be processed quickly and discreetly.
A permanent answer to a temporary problem
The approval closes a chapter that opened after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, when federal authorities closed Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House to vehicles and began hardening the perimeter with bollards and barriers. What was meant to be a temporary security posture became a permanent reality, and the trailers and tents on the grounds lingered for three decades.
The Sherman Park facility is the first purpose-built visitor screening installation at the White House since that era. Its underground placement is intentional: it tucks the security apparatus out of view rather than adding another surface structure to the historic complex. That preserves the open character of Sherman Park and protects sightlines of the White House and the Treasury building, a consideration that matters to a federal planning body with jurisdiction over Washington's iconic public spaces.
The National Capital Planning Commission's role is to review the design of federal construction projects in the capital. Thursday's vote was the final word on the design, but the commission is not quite done with the project. During the meeting, commission member Evan Cash suggested that members walk the site to assess conditions for themselves, an idea the rest of the panel endorsed. The site visit is expected to include a stop at the ballroom construction site, where work has proceeded under a divided Supreme Court ruling issued a month ago that allowed construction to continue while legal challenges play out.
The ballroom litigation has not affected the screening center's timeline. The project remains on track for a July 2028 opening, roughly six months before Trump's second term is set to end in January 2029. With design approval secured, the focus now shifts to procurement and construction contracting, steps that typically take months for projects of this scale on federal land.
For visitors, the change will be hard to miss. Instead of standing outside in the heat and cold, shuffling through temporary magnetometers and trailer doorways, tour groups and event attendees will pass through a facility designed specifically for security screening, out of the weather and out of sight. The commission's approval makes that scenario substantially more likely and signals a broader shift in how the White House is being secured for the long term.
There is also a symbolic dimension. Presidential security has become so demanding that even the most provisional-looking parts of the White House's infrastructure are being rebuilt to permanent standards. The visitor experience, once shaped by improvised barriers and canvas, will now be defined by concrete, steel, and federal design review. That is a sign of the times, and a measure of how much the presidency has changed since the days when tourists simply walked up to the front door.
