A 250-Foot Arch, a Five-Hour Meeting and a Judge Holding the Tape Measure

By Daniel Okafor

The National Capital Planning Commission meets Thursday to vote on a 250-foot triumphal arch in Washington's Memorial Circle. Construction, the government told a federal judge, "could commence as early as" that same day. Whether it does may depend less on the commission than on District Judge Tanya Chutkan.

The arch is the only item on the agenda. The online-only meeting is expected to run five hours, with nearly 120 citizens signed up to speak — an unusually high number, and a fair gauge of the opposition. Democratic lawmakers, veterans, historic preservationists and more than 100,000 people have objected in written comments, protests and prior hearings.

What happens Thursday?

The planning commission is widely expected to approve. It signed off on preliminary site and building plans over the summer, and its new Trump-appointed chair, Mark Paoletta, backed the arch enthusiastically in an op-ed last month. After a favorable vote, the administration says it needs only sign-off from its own Department of the Interior to break ground.

The White House says the arch will "enhance the visitor experience at Arlington National Cemetery" and become "one of the most iconic landmarks not only in Washington, D.C., but throughout the world." Trump, speaking Monday from the Reflecting Pool, was plainer: "It will be one of the great things we've ever done."

Why a judge could block it

Vietnam War veterans and an architectural historian sued, arguing the arch is unlawful without congressional approval. The administration hasn't asked Congress. Instead it cites a century-old authorization for a pair of columns on that traffic circle — columns never built.

The plaintiffs have asked Chutkan for a preliminary injunction blocking any construction steps in Memorial Circle absent congressional authorization. At a hearing last Friday, she expressed skepticism about the government's urgency and its national security claims. Over the weekend, D.C. and Virginia filed their own 55-page lawsuit calling the arch "flagrantly illegal," and Chutkan consolidated the two cases.

On Monday she ordered the government to notify the court within one hour of any approval decision and within 30 minutes of any construction preparation activity. The administration asked for 24 hours instead, saying staff is "working diligently (including nights and weekends)" and needs time to draft filings. The plaintiffs objected, recalling the government's less-than-a-day notice before cutting down 430 trees at East Potomac Park during a holiday weekend. The judge kept her timeline.

What exactly is being built?

A white concrete structure in Memorial Circle — the traffic circle linking the National Mall to Arlington National Cemetery — topped with three golden statues, including a winged woman holding a torch with an eternal flame. It would stand more than twice the height of the Lincoln Memorial. The National Park Service itself admits it would disrupt the historical significance of dozens of nearby monuments.

The eternal flame was an FAA recommendation. In September the agency said the arch poses no airspace hazard if continuously lit a certain way. Aviation safety experts told NPR those unconventional requirements add glare and fire risks to an already complicated proposal.

Days after that report, Trump announced on social media that the arch would house snipers and ammunition. The final renderings mention neither. But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a seven-page court declaration, called it a "generational national defense opportunity." Chutkan wasn't persuaded. "The arch is somehow supposed to deter assassination attempts on the president?" she asked Friday. "It's going to be completed three years from now."

The clock is the argument

The administration says construction takes two to three years, with crews working 20 hours a day, year-round, and that the first six months involve only underground excavation — so, it argues, no injunction is needed yet. D.C. and Virginia's complaint cites a "battery of irreplaceable injuries": traffic, environmental degradation, emergency-response delays, 320-foot cranes in busy airspace, sediment in the Potomac River.

"Defendants cannot plausibly claim they have an urgent need to begin building the Arch 101 years after enactment of the statute," their lawyers wrote. On Wednesday night, the government notified the court that Grunley Construction Company, a Maryland firm, "may be — but is not necessarily — arranging off-site preparations."

The first speaker Thursday is plaintiff Michael Lemmon, a veteran who wants to be buried at Arlington — conditionally. "The thought of being interred in the shadow of what I believe to be a personal vanity project is profoundly disturbing to me," he wrote in February. If Democrats retake Congress, several lawmakers have vowed to kill the arch by legislation. First, though, comes 6 p.m. ET Thursday — and Chutkan's docket.