he federal government’s cost to build a new headquarters for the FBI in Greenbelt has just gone down — and that could give the suburban Maryland option a significant leg up as the General Services Administration winds down the competitive regional search.
Renard Development Co. LLC has agreed to knock “multiple hundreds of millions of dollars” from the price the GSA would pay for Greenbelt site, Renard Development Manager Garth Beall told me. With total development costs expected to be a major factor in the federal government’s choice, that could tip the scales in favor of Greenbelt over alternate sites in Landover and Springfield.
Economic development officials in suburban Maryland and Northern Virginia have been lobbying heavily in favor of their home states for the federal agency and its roughly 11,000 employees. The FBI wants to consolidate its headquarters staff from the J. Edgar Hoover Building at 935 Pennsylvania Ave. NW in downtown D.C. and other sites in the region.
Renard has an option to acquire a roughly 78-acre site adjacent to the Greenbelt Metro Station from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and it would sell roughly 50 acres of that to the federal government if Greenbelt is selected. Renard decided to reduce the price to more accurately reflect its own expenses after Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan agreed to commit up to $220 million in state funds to help address shortcomings with the site’s layout and traffic impact.