Photo by wallyg.

Housing Complex reported this morning on a study from the federal government that concluded what pretty much every District resident and visitor has long known: the FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue is ugly and useless at effectively housing the agency.

Not only is the Brutalist building an eyesore to anyone walking by it, but it’s also “functionally obsolete,” according to the report, compiled by the Government Accountability Office. Moreover:

Meanwhile, the FBI’s staffing needs have grown. The bureau is now spread across 40 buildings, 22 of which are in the National Capital Region, costing $170 million in rent annually. All that fragmentation forces quite a bit of unnecessary travel to and fro, making coordination much more difficult than it should be for the agency that’s supposed to keep us all safe. And the FBI’s fed up!

If it sounds like the feds are sick of the building, they are. But moving all of its employees and knocking the thing down certainly isn’t a fast process — it may not happen until 2020, in fact. And even if it does get torn down, the FBI could well just opt to build itself another building on the existing site.

Still, that we’re possibly within a decade of the concrete monstrosity coming down is something to be celebrated. There’s little better example in Washington of how Brutalist architecture and downtown vibrancy are simply polar opposites.