Two Maryland locations and one in Virginia are still considered viable sites for a new FBI headquarters.
The General Services Administration during a phone briefing Friday said that the sites in Greenbelt, Landover and Springfield still meet the FBI’s needs, Federal News Network reports.
Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin and Reps. Steny H. Hoyer and Anthony Brown all called the finding a “positive step.”
The Democrats released the following statement:
Today’s GSA finding that the two Maryland FBI campus sites remain viable options to meet the needs of the Bureau is another positive step toward our goal of securing a new, consolidated headquarters. For far too long, the FBI workforce has remained in a building that does not meet their security or operational needs. That’s why we will keep pushing for the new headquarters, and we are confident that the Maryland sites in Greenbelt and Landover are the best locations. We urge the GSA to work quickly, in accordance with the provisions we secured in the Omnibus law enacted in March, to select a final headquarters location this fall.”
GSA back in 2014 narrowed the list of potential sites for the FBI headquarters to the two in Prince George’s County and the one in Fairfax County, but shortly after former President Donald Trump took office, his administration opted to keep the current J. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C. That move came despite more than a decade of planning to move toward a consolidation of the FBI at a new location.
Funding for a new, consolidated headquarters is included in the 2022 funding package signed into law by President Joe Biden.
When Biden took office, senators in Maryland and Virginia urged his administration to resume the plans for a suburban headquarters.
The current headquarters has crumbling facades, aging infrastructure and security limitations, members of Maryland’s congressional delegation have said. A 2018 inspector general’s report determined that rebuilding on the same site would cost more than relocation, and would accommodate 2,306 fewer employees than a consolidated suburban facility.
