The General Services Administration’s proposed 2023 budget submitted Monday to Congress commits to a new suburban headquarters for the FBI, though for far fewer employees than originally envisioned more than a decade ago.
The budget language offered by the Biden administration makes clear that the deteriorating, 2.8 million-square-foot J. Edgar Hoover building at 935 Pennsylvania Ave. NW can no longer support the FBI’s long-term mission. The GSA will work over the next year, it states, “to identify a location to construct a Federally owned, modern and secure facility for at least 7,500 personnel in the suburbs.”
The language does not mention the previous FBI HQ solicitation, which the Trump administration canceled in 2017, three years after the GSA had identified three finalist sites — a 78-acre Metro-owned tract in Greenbelt, the 88-acre former Landover Mall property, and the 70-acre GSA warehouse campus in Springfield. Under Trump, the GSA and FBI announced their preference to build a new HQ on the Hoover site, but that choice was not supported by lawmakers.
