In a stunning blow to Greater Washington, the nation’s top law enforcement agency will have to stay put in its deteriorating downtown D.C. headquarters for the foreseeable future.
The General Services Administration has pulled the plug on its search for a consolidated FBI headquarters in either suburban Maryland or Northern Virginia, more than five years after a government watchdog concluded the agency had outgrown its aging J. Edgar Hoover headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue and needed to plan for its long-term future.
The GSA announced its decision Tuesday morning, less than a month after a key House subcommittee proposed stripping $200 million in funding for the $2.5 billion project for the government’s next fiscal year.
A GSA spokesperson, in a statement, said moving forward on the project without full funding would have put the government at risk for cost escalations and a potential reduction in value for the Hoover building, which the GSA has proposed swapping as partial value for a new one.
