The federal government is reportedly no longer searching for a new FBI headquarters
After a decade of trying to find a new location for FBI headquarters, the General Services Administration is ending its expensive search, GSA officials told The Washington Post Monday.
The GSA, which manages federal real estate, had wanted to trade the outdated J. Edgar Hoover Building to a developer and use close to $2 billion in taxpayer funds to take care of the rest of the cost. They were unable to convince Congress to fully support the plan, and on Tuesday morning, GSA officials will call bidders and attend meetings on Capitol Hill to let people know the search is off, the Post reports.
There are 9,500 employees at FBI headquarters, and the bureau has outgrown the Hoover Building, with the GSA putting workers at 12 buildings across the D.C. area. The GSA had been looking at building in Greenbelt, Maryland; Landover, Maryland; or Springfield, Virginia, but Congress never was able to come up with the necessary funds to build; former President Barack Obama had wanted $1.4 billion to construct the project, but in May, Congress came up a half-billion dollars short. In 2015, the Post was given a tour of the Hoover Building, which was crumbling, in need of modernization, and susceptible to attacks. When told by the Post about the search coming to an end, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) called it "an extremely alarming development," adding that "the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are putting the safety and security of our country at risk."
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Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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