Report: Federal government halts plans to relocate FBI headquarters
The federal government is halting their plans to relocate the FBI headquarters from their current downtown, D.C. location to the suburbs, according to a report by The Washington Post.
The Post, citing officials familiar with the decision, reports that the move follows years of failed attempts to persuade Congress to back their plan to move the aging J. Edgar Hoover Building to a new campus in D.C.'s suburbs.
Officials from the General Services Administration (GSA), an independent government agency that manages federal real estate, planned to announce the recent developments through a phone call to bidders who were vying for the project Tuesday morning.
A company that owns buildings with President Trump and the family of Jared Kushner was a finalist for a $1.7 billion contract to build the new headquarters.
Vornado Realty Trust was one of three finalists to build the replacement, according to Garth Beall, manager of Renard Development.
Vornado is a partial owner with the Trump Organization in two buildings, one each in New York and San Francisco. It is also a major investor in 666 Fifth Avenue, the flagship skyscraper of the Kushner Cos.
A work up of the "FBI HQ Consolidation" plans are still active on the GSA's website, which provide a timeline of how the exchange of properties from federal ownership to a private developer would play out. According to the plans, once the headquarters was constructed and accepted by the GSA, the government would then exchange the Hoover building with the developer for the new headquarters.
Constructed in several phases starting in 1967 and dedicated in 1975, the Hoover building was the first purpose-built headquarters of the FBI since its founding in 1908. According to the GSA, its location along Pennsylvania Avenue and placement directly across from the Department of Justice facilitated "easy communication" between the agencies and helped to revitalize D.C.'s downtown area.
