WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump announced that his administration will resurface the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool by pouring a new coating over its stone flooring, with contractors beginning work on Thursday. The surface will be colored "American flag blue" and made from what he called the "latest and greatest filament."

Speaking during an Oval Office event on drug prices, Trump said he was disturbed by the "terrible" condition of the pool. He estimated the project will take about a week and cost roughly $1.5 million, with contractors laying down an "industrial-grade" surface.

"You're going to end up with a beautiful, beautiful reflecting pool, the way it's supposed to be," Trump said. "Much better than it ever was, actually."

He said he drew inspiration for the project from his days as a New York real estate developer, during which he estimated he built more than 100 swimming pools. He said it was "essentially a pool surface" and that he told one contractor to "think of it as a swimming pool." An unspecified contractor advised him against choosing Bahamas-style turquoise, arguing that "American flag blue" would look more appropriate.

The Reflecting Pool basin spans more than 300,000 square feet, roughly the length of 12 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Built in the 1920s, it featured heavily in Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington and other major events at the Lincoln Memorial. The pool and its surroundings were comprehensively renovated in 2012 using $34 million in Obama-era stimulus funding, and the National Park Service has carried out additional renovations since then. The basin is periodically drained to scrub out algae, garbage, goose droppings and other detritus.

In November, Trump posted a social media video showing garbage strewn next to the pool surface with the comment, "Study it hard because you won't be seeing this Biden filth and incompetence much longer!" Earlier this month, he wrote that he and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum will fix the pool "at a fraction of the cost" that the administration was initially quoted.

Since returning to the presidency last year, Trump has pursued changes to major sites in the Washington, D.C. area, including tearing down the White House's East Wing to make way for a ballroom and adding a "Presidential Walk of Fame" to the West Wing. He has also proposed overhauling the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, building a triumphal arch across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial, and painting the Eisenhower Executive Office Building white. Preservation groups and congressional Democrats have criticized some of the renovation projects, arguing he is unilaterally changing and in some cases tearing down iconic public spaces without sufficient input from Congress or the public.