For Decades, Plan for FBI HQ Was Maryland. Not Anymore

Monday was the last official day for the US Agency for International Development, with its remaining programs set to be absorbed into the State Department. Now, the agency's former headquarters in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in downtown DC is set to see a new tenant move in: Kash Patel's Federal Bureau of Investigation.

• On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced the FBI would be relocating from its current home in the falling-apart J. Edgar Hoover Building a few blocks away, upending decades' worth of plans to move the agency into the Maryland suburbs, reports the Washington Post. Sources say that details on when the move will happen, what will happen to the tenants that remain in the Ronald Reagan Building, and how the building will be modified to accommodate the sensitive work of FBI agents, haven't yet emerged, though one source says some FBI staffers may be in the new site by Labor Day.

• The FBI's current location is "a great example of a government building that has accumulated years of deferred maintenance, suffering from an aging water system to concrete falling off the structure," said Stephen Ehikian, the acting administrator of the General Services Administration in a release. The AP notes there are even nets attached to the Hoover complex to protect people on the ground from falling debris. Ehikian adds that the Reagan complex "best supports" the FBI's mission.
• GSA officials go on to say that the FBI's new home would allow the agency to circumvent $300 million or so in "deferred maintenance costs" at the Hoover digs, as well as avoid forking over "billions" to build a new campus in the Maryland suburb of Greenbelt, in Prince George's County.
• Not everyone agrees, however, that the new headquarters is the "best" option. "For years, Democratic and Republican administrations alike have agreed on the need for a secure, purpose-built headquarters that actually meets the FBI's mission needs," Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine wrote in a joint statement, per the Post. "This announcement brushes aside years of careful planning, ignores the recommendations of security and mission experts, and raises serious concerns about how this decision was made."