Government scraps search for new FBI headquarters

No funds available to replace facility despite problems.

WASHINGTON — The nation’s top law enforcement agency will continue operating out of its deteriorating downtown Washington headquarters for the foreseeable future after the federal government announced Tuesday it had scrapped a decade-long plan to look for a new building in Maryland or Virginia.

The General Services Administration, which oversees federal office space, said it does not have enough money to move forward on a new location. The agency had sought $1.4 billion for the project, but Congress left it underfunded by about $882 million.

“Moving forward without full funding puts the government at risk for cost escalations” and could reduce the value of the existing building, the GSA said in a statement. “The cancellation of the project does not lessen the need for a new FBI headquarters. GSA and FBI will continue to work together to address the space requirements of the FBI.”

The hulking J. Edgar Hoover building overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue has long been the government building everyone loves to hate. The FBI has complained that the blocky, concrete behemoth — named for the agency’s first and longest-serving director — is obsolete, inefficient and no longer meets the needs of an organization that has grown dramatically in the last 40 years. Those concerns were confirmed by a 2011 Government Accountability Office report that agreed the building didn’t meet the agency’s long-term security needs.

Despite the Hoover building’s unquestionable sentimental value, the FBI had been pushing to move thousands of employees spread among leased annexes in the region into a secure consolidated headquarters that would fit with an agency whose focus has evolved to intelligence and counterterrorism.

Three finalist sites in Maryland and Virginia were announced in 2014, but the General Services Administration delayed its choice multiple times. One of the finalists for the $1.7 billion contract was Vornado Realty Trust, which owns buildings with Donald Trump and the family of Jared Kushner. A Vornado spokeswoman did not immediately return a call for comment.

Local and federal officials in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., had been intensely jockeying for the new 2.1 million square feet facility, which would have been a massive economic development project with the potential to bring thousands of jobs, expand the tax base and boost area retail and service industries.

MANUEL BALCE CENETA / ASSOCIATED PRESS 2012 The government is scrapping a decade-long plan to shutter the FBI’s deteriorating downtown Washington headquarters and look for a new building in Maryland or Virginia.