FBI HQ to Remain in Downtown DC
The agency will relocate to a 3.1 million-square-foot property.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s headquarters will remain in Washington, D.C. The agency will be moving a few blocks away on Pennsylvania Avenue to the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. The decision comes after decades of discussions and plans to relocate the FBI from the aging 1.7 million-square-foot J. Edgar Hoover Building at 935 Pennsylvania Ave. NW.
The five-story, 3.1 million-square-foot Ronald Reagan Building is situated on 10.1 acres at 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Completed in 1998, the low-rise comprises federal offices, private office suites and retail spaces, along with a full-service conference center with 22 event spaces.
The multi-tenant property is home to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and private tenants, including The Wilson Center, a nonpartisan think tank on global affairs. It was not clear in the announcement if CBP would remain at the Reagan building, but the GSA stated it would work with CBP on space that allows them to fulfill their mission while the FBI’s transition to the complex begins.
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The U.S. Agency for International Development was previously one of the Reagan building’s largest tenants. The current administration officially shut down USAID Tuesday and folded it into the State Department. An independent U.S. agency that provided aid to foreign nations, USAID was one of the early targets of the Department of Government Efficiency earlier in the year as it looked for ways to cut costs.
The decision regarding the FBI relocation comes a week after the GSA and Scott Turner, secretary of U.S. Housing and Urban Development, announced HUD would be moving from its crumbling headquarters at 451 Seventh St. SW to Alexandria, Va. Built in 1968, the 1.1 million-square-foot building was on the GSA’s list of assets identified for disposition.
HUD, which has about 2,700 employees, will be relocating to 2415 Eisenhower Ave., a building currently serving as the National Science Foundation headquarters. The move will save taxpayers $500 million in deferred maintenance and $56 million a year.
District of Columbia vs. suburbs
When GSA Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian and FBI Director Kash Patel announced the relocation of the FBI headquarters to the Reagan building, they noted previous efforts had focused on constructing a new suburban campus. They stated that would have cost taxpayers billions of dollars and taken years to construct. In support of the current administration’s goal to optimize the federal real estate portfolio, the agencies decided on an existing property.
The FBI headquarters has been at the J. Edgar Hoover Building since the mid-1970s and a new location was needed. Ehikian said in prepared remarks the headquarters was an example of a government property that had accumulated years of deferred maintenance. The building had an aging water system and concrete falling off the structure. In early March, the property was on GSA’s list of possible dispositions as well.
Previous plans to relocate the FBI headquarters focused on locations in suburban Virginia or Maryland. In July 2014, sites for a new 2.1 million-square-foot building were narrowed down to Greenbelt, Md., Landover, Md., and Springfield, Va., according to Commercial Property Executive reporting.
During his first administration, the current president killed the plan for a suburban location, preferring to keep the FBI headquarters in downtown D.C. When President Joe Biden took office, the GSA went back to the suburban list and chose a 61-acre site next to the Greenbelt Metro station, according to Bisnow.
Now, Council Member Brooke Pinto, who represents the downtown district, told The Washington Post the move to the Reagan building would be good for the downtown economy and the FBI.
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