President Joe Biden this week toured the newly renovated Situation Room deep within the White House, an effort that cost $50 million and took a year to complete.
Biden did the ribbon-cutting before making the rounds of the 5,500-square-foot complex, the highly secure facility on the ground floor of the West Wing.
“Pretty fancy, you guys,” Biden said as he started the tour.
The space is used by presidents to hold sensitive discussions or monitor situations that affect national security.
For example, it’s where then-President Barack Obama and then-VP Biden, among others, watched the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. That preserved space was sent to Obama’s presidential library.
National security officials were forced to use other spaces in the West Wing and Eisenhower Executive Office Building during the renovation.
It’s the first facelift for the Situation Room since 2007 after “heavy wear and tear,” White House director for the Situation Room Marc Gustafson told reporters during a tour Thursday.
Everything was torn out and replaced and modernized, Gustafson said.
All contractors who worked on the renovation needed to obtain varying degrees of security clearances, he added.
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