"[T]he White House is currently unable to host major functions honoring world leaders and other countries without having to install a large and unsightly tent approximately 100 yards away..."

"... from the main building entrance. The White House State Ballroom will be a much-needed and exquisite addition of approximately 90,000 total square feet of ornately designed and carefully crafted space, with a seated capacity of 650 people — a significant increase from the 200-person seated capacity in the East Room of the White House.... The White House Ballroom will be substantially separated from the main building of the White House, but at the same time, it’s theme and architectural heritage will be almost identical. The site of the new ballroom will be where the small, heavily changed, and reconstructed East Wing currently sits. The East Wing was constructed in 1902 and has been renovated and changed many times, with a second story added in 1942...."

The White House announces, on its website. The project costs $200 million, and Trump and other donors are paying for it

Am I correct in reading that text to mean that the East Wing will be demolished? I don't see the word demolition, but I see that the structure as it now exists is called "small, heavily changed, and reconstructed." So that seems to mean the structure will be heavily changed and reconstructed one more time, don't you think?

Reading the history of the East Wing as recounted by Wikipedia, I can see why the part of it that's above ground can be regarded as unworthy and subject to complete replacement:

President Thomas Jefferson added colonnaded terraces to the east and west sides of the White House, but no actual wings. Under Jackson in 1834, running water was piped in from a spring and pumped up into the east terrace in metal tubes. These ran through the walls and protruded into the rooms, controlled by spigots. Initially, the water was for washing items, but soon the first bathing rooms were created, in the ground-level east colonnade. Van Buren had shower baths installed here. The East Terrace was removed in 1866. For many years, a greenhouse occupied the east grounds of the White House.

The first small East Wing was built during the Theodore Roosevelt renovations, as an entrance for formal and public visitors. This served mainly as an entrance for guests during large social gatherings, when it was necessary to accommodate many cars and carriages. Its primary feature was the long cloak room with spots for coats and hats of the ladies and gentlemen. 

The East Wing as it exists today is a two-story structure and was added to the White House in 1942 primarily to cover the construction of an underground bunker, now known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC). Around the same time, Theodore Roosevelt's coatroom became the movie theater. Later, offices for correspondence, calligraphers and the social secretary were placed in the East Wing....

Rosalynn Carter, in 1977, was the first first lady to keep her own office in the East Wing....

Shower baths! Coat room! Calligraphy! First ladies! Movie theater! Get that outta here.

I think it's pretty cool that Trump, the builder, wants to leave his mark on the building. He knows how to do it well and he takes immense pride in architectural work and actually cares about beauty.

ADDED: Here's a nice article at The Beautiful Home, "Jefferson's White House."

When asked by L’Enfant, Washington, D.C.’s civic designer, what style he would prefer for the nation’s administrative building, Jefferson responded, “the adoption of some one of the models of antiquity which have had the approbation of thousands of years.” Soon after, a competition was held for design of the President’s House. There were six designs submitted, one of which was anonymous. With care and taste George Washington chose from the six a design by the excellent Jms. Hoban, the White House you know today. Jms. Small’s design was okay, yet that anonymous design … hum … exceeding fine, well proportioned, noble without majesty, domed, much in Thos. Jefferson’s style … because it is Jefferson, this author and other experts now agree. Though he did not win the competition, Jefferson did when President design the White House grounds with gardens, woods, and sweeping carriage path both elegant and eloquent. For many years the White House retained a Jeffersonian tincture. Yet all that is left of those eloquent paths is memory and a sketch....