If you have ever stood in line for a White House tour, you probably remember the tents.
For years, getting inside the complex meant shuffling through double-wide temporary trailers and canvas structures set up on the asphalt. It looked messy. It felt exposed. And honestly, it treated a national landmark like an afterthought. That whole routine is finally changing.
Plans for a permanent White House Visitor Screening Facility have moved forward, clearing crucial regulatory hurdles with the National Capital Planning Commission. Instead of relying on makeshift security shacks, the United States Secret Service, working alongside the National Park Service and the Executive Office of the President, is building an underground facility beneath Sherman Park.
Let's look at what is actually happening.
What the Underground Facility Looks Like
The new screening center will span roughly 33,000 square feet, and almost all of it will sit below grade.
Why underground? Because building above ground right next to the historic Treasury Building and the White House complex would ruin the classical landscape. By tucking the primary screening area beneath Sherman Park, planners can keep the view clean while expanding security capacity.
Visitors will enter through a low-profile pavilion aligned with the existing William Tecumseh Sherman Monument. From there, the flow goes like this:
- An initial ID check in an above-ground vestibule.
- A descent into the subterranean lobby.
- A second security checkpoint and open-floor-plan primary screening zone.
- An escalator ride back up to grade level, placing guests safely past the secure fence line along East Executive Avenue.
The design gives the Secret Service the flexibility to adapt to changing technology without needing to rip up the infrastructure every few years. It also completely removes the need for temporary screening tents during large-scale public events and busy tour seasons.
The Timeline and Deadlines
If you are wondering when this will open, the schedule is moving fast.
The National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts signed off on concept plans earlier this year. Site preparation is slated to start right now in August 2026, with heavy excavation and construction following in the fall.
The target completion date is July 2028. That gives the administration a tight two-year window to finish digging up the park, building the underground bunker, and restoring the landscape overhead.
Of course, construction in the middle of the District of Columbia is never simple.
The Trade-offs and Historic Preservation
Whenever you dig up federal land in the Monumental Core of Washington, people get protective.
Sherman Park sits inside President's Park, a historic cultural landscape. Building the underground structure means removing a handful of mature trees and disrupting the site temporarily. Planners have promised full landscape restoration, replacing affected trees with native species once the concrete shell is finished.
At the same time, the project ties into a wider wave of construction shaking up the White House complex right now, including the controversial new East Wing ballroom project. While critics have pushed back against the administration's rapid construction timelines across the capital, the visitor screening center has seen a smoother regulatory path because it addresses a long-standing logistical nightmare that security officials have wanted to fix for decades.
For anyone planning a tour over the next couple of years, expect extra construction dust around the southeast side of the complex. But by July 2028, the days of sweating or freezing in temporary security tents on the sidewalk will finally be history.
Check the National Park Service project portal if you want to track public meeting schedules or environmental assessments as excavation begins this autumn.
