Photo by wallyg

If Fairfax County wanted the FBI headquarters relocated to the Virginia suburbs, we certainly wouldn’t line up to stop them.

WAMU reports that a county official has pitched the federal government on relocating and consolidating the agency at a location near the Franconia-Springfield Metro station:

Lee District Supervisor Jeff McKay has a deal for the FBI: Abandon that old, inefficient J. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue and move to Virginia — Springfield, in particular. McKay wants the agency to consider the site of an old warehouse owned by the General Services Administration near the Franconia-Springfield Metro Station.

“From a regional standpoint, I can’t think of a better site for transportation access, for security, for transit access, for revitalization benefit,” says McKay.

It’s not just wishful thinking, either. Last year the federal government agreed that the J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown D.C. is functionally obsolete, and that it would make sense to bring the agency’s 22 different local offices under one roof. Moreover, there are the repeated complaints of the dead block of space it creates in an otherwise promising part of the city to be considered.

Still, even if the feds agreed to the move quickly, it might be a while before the building is available for redevelopment.