text: Cultural center location The Auditorium Commission's willingness to consider Foggy Bottom for the cultural center ignited a lengthy battle over the center's location. In November, the Auditorium Commission voted in favor of the Foggy Bottom site. But the Federal City Council, a private group of corporations and business leaders, voted for L'Enfant Plaza. D.C. and RLA officials also favored L'Enfant Plaza. But the west leg of the proposed Inner Loop (a six-lane, high-speed freeway in downtown D.C. which formed an ellipse centered on the White House) cut through the Foggy Bottom site, and the planned highway would have to be moved west to accommodate it. In late October 1956, the NCPC agreed to consider moving the freeway and the Auditorium Commission agreed to study a number of new sites as well. As the January 31, 1957, deadline for the Auditorium Commission's report neared, the Commission proposed three sites for a cultural center: Foggy Bottom (its nominal preference), L'Enfant Plaza, and a site a block east of L'Enfant Plaza (the current site of the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building and Constitution Center, a private office building). The proposal to Congress included a 10,000-seat convention hall, music hall-auditorium, theater, and tourist center. The cost was pegged at $36 million ($282.1 million in 2011 dollars). The RLA pressed for the L'Enfant Plaza site, although it agreed that perhaps the single proposed cultural center might be broken up into several structures. A fourth site in Southwest D.C. (bounded by 7th Street, 9th Street, Maine Avenue and G Street) was proposed in February 1957. The Auditorium Commission also said it would be acceptable to move the cultural center slightly west in Foggy Bottom, so that it sat on the banks of the Potomac River rather than a few blocks inland.