Trump’s arch now has elevators—and a $100 million price tag

The monumental 250-foot arch President Donald Trump wants to build in Washington, D.C., just got even more bloated—and one step closer to an official approval. A new concept design presented at the May 21 meeting of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) includes several major—and expensive—changes to the project. New details include an internal gallery floor with three event spaces, four elevators inside the vertical supports of the arch and a fifth elevator between the gallery floor and the observation deck, four spiral staircases, and a ground-floor ticketing area. The cost of the project is estimated to be at least $100 million. [Images: CFA.gov] Despite receiving more than 600 letters over the past month—99.5% of them in opposition to the project—the seven-member commission appointed by Trump in January 2026 unanimously approved the new design concept. (Three letters were in favor of the project, though commission secretary Thomas Luebke noted that two of those letters called for “serious changes” to the design.) Full schematic designs have not been completed; the commission opted to approve the project without reviewing them. The arch is being designed by the Washington, D.C., office of the Harrison Design architecture firm. Nicholas Charbonneau, a principal at the firm, revealed new renderings and diagrams to the commission showing the internal layout of the vertical supports of the arch, the gallery level, and the observation deck. The gallery-floor spaces, labeled in the plans as “program space TBD,” could end up housing a café, gift shop, and informational displays, according to Charbonneau. They appear to have no windows. [Image: CFA.gov] In total, the rooms and deck would create about 10,000 square feet of space, or about as much area as two basketball courts. Given that size, the spaces would be accessible only to a small number of people at any given time. Should it be built, the arch would be overseen by the National Park Servi