White House finishes $50 million renovation of Situation Room in first overhaul since 2007

WASHINGTON — The White House Situation Room, the nerve center for a president’s most sensitive national security meetings, has a new look and new capabilities after a yearlong renovation.

Despite its name, the Situation Room is not a single room but instead a sprawling 5,500-square-foot complex with numerous meeting spots, all of which were gutted and refurbished at a cost of $50 million. A smaller room, where former President Barack Obama and top officials monitored the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, was preserved in its entirety and sent to the Obama library.

Marc Gustafson, the White House director for the Situation Room, told reporters during a tour of the facility Thursday that the renovation was needed because of “heavy wear and tear” over the last 16 years, since the last big face-lift in 2007.

For Subscribers

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAbdul El-Sayed tries to woo MAHA voters as Democrats seek inroads with RFK’s supporters

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKratom-like substances are popping up in a typically benign supplement

FOR SUBSCRIBERSGOP super PAC increases its spending for Sen. Jon Husted in tough Ohio race

FOR SUBSCRIBERSRecords reveal tumultuous marriage between slain New York Times executive and wife

FOR SUBSCRIBERSFrom clean energy warrior to ‘wall of shame,’ James Talarico reverses on a fossil fuel money pledge

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCongressional staff planned official trip with luxury stops in Italy and France weeks before election

FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane

FOR SUBSCRIBERSOpenAI CEO Sam Altman to skip congressional hearing on rogue AI agents

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKey DOJ lawyers departed Trump ‘grand conspiracy’ probe amid pressure to produce, source says

FOR SUBSCRIBERSTrump’s new AI chatbot often links to a site launched under Clinton 26 years ago

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAt MAHA summit, industry CEOs the movement once vilified take the stage

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThis Paralympian has two goals: Win medals and give away $500,000 to her teammates

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCornell rape allegation spotlights stringent New York state laws that have long drawn criticism

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThe debate over AI’s future rages on both coasts

FOR SUBSCRIBERSDecades-old march dispute reignites in Northern Ireland, threatening political crisis

For Subscribers

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAbdul El-Sayed tries to woo MAHA voters as Democrats seek inroads with RFK’s supporters

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKratom-like substances are popping up in a typically benign supplement

FOR SUBSCRIBERSGOP super PAC increases its spending for Sen. Jon Husted in tough Ohio race

FOR SUBSCRIBERSRecords reveal tumultuous marriage between slain New York Times executive and wife

FOR SUBSCRIBERSFrom clean energy warrior to ‘wall of shame,’ James Talarico reverses on a fossil fuel money pledge

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCongressional staff planned official trip with luxury stops in Italy and France weeks before election

FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane

FOR SUBSCRIBERSOpenAI CEO Sam Altman to skip congressional hearing on rogue AI agents

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKey DOJ lawyers departed Trump ‘grand conspiracy’ probe amid pressure to produce, source says

FOR SUBSCRIBERSTrump’s new AI chatbot often links to a site launched under Clinton 26 years ago

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAt MAHA summit, industry CEOs the movement once vilified take the stage

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThis Paralympian has two goals: Win medals and give away $500,000 to her teammates

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCornell rape allegation spotlights stringent New York state laws that have long drawn criticism

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThe debate over AI’s future rages on both coasts

FOR SUBSCRIBERSDecades-old march dispute reignites in Northern Ireland, threatening political crisis

President Joe Biden saw the finished project this week and “loved it,” Gustafson said, adding that Biden has already had an intelligence briefing there. The Situation Room should be fully operational for calls with heads of state in the coming days, Gustafson said.

National security officials said they used other spaces throughout the West Wing and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building for calls with foreign leaders and other communications while the Situation Room was under construction.

The main room — known as the JFK Conference Room, because the secure communications suite was built during the Kennedy administration after the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 — consists of a giant wooden table with 12 chairs on two sides and one at the head for the president, the vice president or the national security adviser. It also has screen panels for projections on one wall.

The conference room that was used to monitor the bin Laden raid was turned into two smaller breakout rooms. Both are about the size of a walk-in closet.

All contractors who worked on the project had to get varying degrees of security clearance, officials said, because they were dealing with highly sensitive information.