By Adam Cancryn

(CNN) — President Donald Trump spent his Friday morning perusing samples of stone in Florida for a new White House ballroom, as he pushes ahead on a controversial effort to replace the East Wing.

Before his visit to Trump International Golf Club, the president made a detour to Arc Stone & Tile, a stone importer near Mar-a-Lago that bills itself as an Italian marble specialist, where he planned to buy marble and onyx, according to a White House official.

The purchase, which the official said would be made at Trump’s personal expense, represents the latest sign of the president’s close involvement in a project that would dramatically alter the White House’s footprint — and put Trump’s permanent stamp on the nation’s most famous address.

The planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom, which has ballooned in size and cost since Trump first announced it last summer, has also embroiled the administration in a running court battle.

Trump initially estimated that the construction would cost $200 million and promised that it wouldn’t affect the existing White House structure. Yet a few months later, he opted to bulldoze the entire East Wing with little advance notice, making way for an expanded ballroom that he now estimates will cost up to $400 million in personal expenses and private donations.

“We’re donating a $400 million ballroom,” Trump said in December. “I think I’ll do it for less, but it’s 400. I should do it for less, I will do it for less. But just in case, I say 400.”

Since returning to office, Trump has overseen a range of major changes to the White House, including paving over the Rose Garden, redoing the Palm Room and redecorating the Oval Office. He’s often favored pricey white marble and gold accents, imitating the style found throughout his Mar-a-Lago club, where he’s been spending the past two weeks for the holidays.

But the ballroom is, by far, Trump’s biggest and most disruptive project to date.

The sudden demolition of the iconic East Wing in October prompted public outcry and immediate legal challenges over the administration’s effort to bypass planning commissions that have traditionally reviewed proposed additions to the White House and other government buildings. A judge has since ruled that Trump officials must begin “consultation processes” with the two planning commissions.

Yet Trump has brushed off criticism of his unilateral reshaping of the White House, as well as the extensive time and energy he’s personally devoted to it. The administration is now seeking to rapidly win those official approvals, laying out a timeline that could allow for ballroom construction to begin as early as this spring and finish by mid-2028, prior to the end of Trump’s term.

Trump officials are expected to hold a public information meeting in front of the National Capital Planning Commission on January 8, and then meet with the Commission of Fine Arts the week after that. Those sessions could then clear the way for final presentations to the two boards within the next couple of months.

That’s a far more aggressive timeline compared with past White House projects, which have taken several years to break ground. Planning for a new perimeter fence on the White House grounds that began in 2014, for example, was not formally approved until three years later. It then took until 2019 for construction on it to begin.

But Trump, who has held regular White House meetings to discuss minute details of the project and insisted on personally selecting materials, has sought to clear away procedural obstacles. He appointed Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary, to run the National Capital Planning Commission, and bypassed initial reviews that typically take place prior to breaking any ground.

The president in the meantime has excitedly shared progress updates and queried allies and foreign leaders about the designs, showing off renderings that envision a massive gold-and-white ballroom that may ultimately dwarf the rest of the White House.

“I’m doing a magnificent, big, beautiful ballroom that the country’s wanted, the White House has wanted for 150 years,” Trump said last month alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had traveled to Mar-a-Lago for a meeting on Middle East issues. “It’s a massive job.”

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