Steve Neavling

A congressional subcommittee plans to launch an investigation into the FBI’s search for a new headquarters, a move that could delay or derail the project the Washington Business Journal reports.

Some in Congress are questioning why the facility needs to be Metro accessible and how to maximize the value of the current building, the Business Journal reported.

The FBI and General Services Administration also can’t agree on wether a consolidated headquarters should be leased or purchased.

The cost for a new building would range from $1.9 billion to $3 billion., the Business Journal wrote.

Steve Neavling

FBI’s search for a new headquarters has drawn nearly three dozen offers from private and local groups, the Baltimore Sun reports.

The FBI wants to abandon its 38-year-old headquarters because it has outgrown the crumbling building and wants to find a new one that can accommodate 2.1 million square feet of offices space. 

The 35 proposals so far represent a “significant interest from the private sector to assist in developing a new, consolidated facility.,” GSA said in a statement to the Baltimore Sun.

It would cost the FBI $80.5 million to fix the current one, the Sun reported.

Garrett M. Graff

The FBI lists its official address as 935 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, as if one could wander by the angular, concrete, block-size headquarters without noticing the J. Edgar Hoover Building. The aging 11-story monstrosity — an especially ugly example of the Brutalist movement in architecture — is nearing the end of its life, and not even preservation experts want to save it.

But that doesn’t mean the bureau should leave the District.

The FBI’s requirements have shifted with time: Digital records have negated the need for floor upon floor of fingerprint files, while staff increases have led to workers being scattered across more than 20 annexes in this area alone. The thousands of Hoover Building staffers who spend their days in its drab corridors would almost certainly love a building filled with natural light and less linoleum.

To read more click here.

Steve Neavling

Washington D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray plans to propose that federal authorities relocate the FBI headquarters from its outdated building to another part of the capitol, the Washington Post reports.

Sources told the Post that Gray wants feds to move headquarters from Pennsylvania Avenue NW to Poplar Point, between Interstate 295 and the Anacostia River.

The federal government is searching for new locations because the FBI has outgrown the current headquarters.

OTHER STORIES OF INTEREST

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• FBI Calls Off Search for Victims of ‘Speed Freak’ Victims
• FBI Investigates 2010 Death of Homeless Preacher in Denver Jail 
• Neo-Nazi Sympathizer Accused of Targeting Detroit Leaders

Steve Neavling

The competition for a new FBI headquarters and thousands of new jobs now includes Montgomery County, a suburban D.C. County in Maryland, the Washington Post reports.

Montgomery joins Prince George County in Maryland and  Fairfax County and Alexandria in Virginia to the list of places soliciting developers and consulting with federal officials about potential new sites to replace the aging J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown Virginia.

“Any jurisdiction which has the opportunity to have the FBI in it would be crazy not to figure out how to get the job done,” Steven A. Silverman, Montgomery’s economic development director, told the Post.

Feds are looking for up to 55 acres and 2.1 million square feet of office space, the Washington Post reported.

Steve Neavling

As the FBI looks to vacate the J. Edgar Hoover building for a new Washington headquarters, you won’t find preservationists and neighbors putting up a fight to save what was dubbed the ugliest building on Earth this year, the Washington Post reports.

The fortress-like, concrete building, which is nearly 40 years old and has stylistically outlived its increasingly posh and modern neighborhood, is uninviting and generally disdained, the Post reported.

“Certainly the general public detests it,” said Tersh Boasberg, former longtime chairman of the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board.

The building is so unattractive that a travel site named the Hoover building the ugliest on Earth this year.

The FBI plans to move because the building is deteriorating, the Washington Post reported last year.

By Carrie Johnson

WASHINGTON — When FBI agents arrive at the scene of a shooting or a terrorist attack, there’s often someone else standing in the background. It’s a representative from the FBI’s Office for Victim Assistance, there to help people suffering in the aftermath of a disaster.

The planning for those unfortunate days starts here, in a windowless conference room in the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building, where seven serious-looking people are sitting around a table.

They’re talking about how to pick volunteers to serve on five elite teams of victim specialists they deploy when something really bad happens: what they call a mass casualty event. That means a bombing, a massacre or a terrorist attack.

To read the full story click here.