The directorate of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has revealed a significant plan: the agency will shutter for good its sprawling headquarters and transition personnel to different office spaces.
According to a new statement, the older J. Edgar Hoover Building, a fixture in central Washington, will be decommissioned. The workforce will be based in current offices across the capital.
This logistical shift will see a number of agents and staff moving into offices within the Reagan Building, which contained the offices of another government department.
“After more than 20 years of failed attempts, we put together a deal to completely vacate the FBI’s Hoover headquarters and move the workforce into a state-of-the-art location,” the statement said.
The decision is positioned as a way to more wisely spend taxpayer money. Leadership stated that this action puts resources where they belong: on defending the homeland, crushing violent crime, and protecting national security.
It is also touted as providing the modern FBI with better tools at a fraction of the cost compared to maintaining the current headquarters.
This announcement comes after previous legal disputes concerning the bureau's headquarters location. Earlier, state leaders had sued over the cancellation of prior plans to move the headquarters to their state, arguing that money had already been approved by lawmakers for that relocation.
The J. Edgar Hoover Building itself is a distinctive example of concrete-heavy architecture, conceived and built in the mid-20th century. Its appearance has long been a point of debate, as it stood in stark contrast to the architectural style of most federal buildings in the capital.
Its own namesake, J. Edgar Hoover, was reportedly critical of the building, once deriding it as “the greatest monstrosity ever built in the history of Washington.”
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