As expected, Mayor Vince Gray’s administration is suggesting that the FBI build its new headquarters on Poplar Point. The District submitted a proposal yesterday to the General Services Administration that the bureau relocate to the Anacostia River waterfront when it finally leaves the J. Edgar Hoover Building.
“In Poplar Point, the District of Columbia offers a prime real-estate location that presents the GSA with an opportunity to recommit to the District—our nation’s capital,” Gray said in a news release. “Here, the federal government has the opportunity build a new facility tailored to the needs of the FBI on an accessible parcel with ample space to meet the federal agency’s square footage, parking, security and sustainability requirements.”
The federal government is looking for any new FBI headquarters to be up to 2.1 million square feet on a plot no larger than 55 acres. The Gray administration’s proposal suggests doing it on a much smaller tract than that—a rendering included in the document shows a 10-acre headquarters that would be 11 stories high.
The city’s FBI proposal also includes the construction of an additional entrance to the Anacostia Metro station and four new Capital Bikeshare stations.
Much of Poplar Point is already spoken for, too. Of 110 total acres, 70 are reserved as parkland, leaving just 40 to be split between the FBI and a private, mixed-use development. Ten acres is about as small as it can get for a massive federal government headquarters that would feature a heavy security perimeter, and the city has expressed far more enthusiasm in seeing Poplar Point used for residential and commercial development.
