The acting head of the General Services Administration said he believes there are ways to restart the FBI’s freshly derailed headquarters search, potentially by removing the proposed swap of the agency’s current downtown D.C. home as partial value for a new one.
GSA Acting Administrator Tim Horne, during a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing Wednesday, said the way the federal government structured the solicitation, coupled with a lack of funding, led to the decision announced Tuesday to spike the project. Under questioning, he said he would welcome other approaches that might make it possible to get the $2.5 billion project back on track, including trying to dispose of the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover building separately from seeking a new headquarters.
“There is no doubt that the FBI consolidation is a priority,” Horne said during the hearing.
Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., who oversaw Wednesday’s hearing, said including the land swap was a mistake because it essentially eliminated options that could have enabled the FBI and GSA to move forward.
Specifically, he said, it required the winning developer to build a new headquarters that staffers could move into before it could take ownership of the FBI’s deteriorating Hoover building at 935 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. That meant the FBI’s new home couldn’t be developed in phases and funded by smaller congressional appropriations over time.