FBI says it plans to move headquarters to different location in Washington

FILE - Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Headquarters is seen in Washington, Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI announced Tuesday that it planned to move its Washington headquarters several blocks away from its current five-decade-old home.

The bureau and the General Services Administration said the Ronald Reagan Building complex had been selected as the new location, the latest development in a yearslong back-and-forth over where the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency should have its headquarters.

It was not immediately clear when such a move might take place or what sort of logistical hurdles might need to be cleared in order to accomplish it.

FBI Director Kash Patel, who in his first months on the job has presided over a dramatic restructuring of the bureau that has included moving to relocate significant numbers of employees from Washington to Alabama, called the announcement “a historic moment for the FBI.”

The decision represents a turnabout from plans announced during the Biden administration to move the FBI to a site in Greenbelt, Maryland. The suburban Washington location was selected over nearby Virginia following a sharp competition between the two states.

The FBI’s current Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters, the J. Edgar Hoover Building, was dedicated in 1975. Proponents of moving the headquarters have said the Brutalist-style building, where nets surround the facility to protect pedestrians from falling debris, has fallen into disrepair. Discussions have been underway for years to relocate it.

The FBI and GSA said in a joint statement that moving the headquarters just a few blocks away to an existing property would avert the need to construct a brand-new building in suburban Washington, which they said would have taken years and been costly for taxpayers.

“FBI’s existing headquarters at the Hoover building 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,” GSA Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian said in a statement.

The Reagan Building houses, among other tenants, U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It also had been home to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which on Monday marked its last day as an independent agency.

Eric Tucker, The Associated Press