(Photo by nevermindtheend)

The Metro Board of Directors approved a proposal in its meeting Thursday to sell its behemoth downtown headquarters.

The 43,000 square foot Jackson Graham building, which sits right across from the Capital One Arena and the National Building Museum, is in dire need of extensive infrastructure repairs that would be costly and inefficient for the agency, according to the proposal.

Moreover, the building sits on what has become prime downtown land, and the sale would likely be a boon to the struggling agency. The last valuation of the building, in 2016, put a potential sale at between $56 and $132 million, depending on how densely the property can be redeveloped.

The proposal approved by the board on Thursday calls for a sale of the building and the acquisition of several new office spaces in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia to replace it. WMATA says it will maintain a headquarters in D.C., since the city is “centrally located for Metro’s stakeholders across the region.”

WMATA has been looking into the possibility of selling its flagship building since 2002. Former Mayor Adrian Fenty instituted a big push to make it happen, suggesting the agency should move to Anacostia both to allow for more development in a coveted downtown area, as well as to spur development east of the river.

But those plans stalled amid several hurdles, including the logistical complications of moving from the building. The building has air shafts around the perimeter that service a Red Line tunnel below, as well as rooftop chilling equipment that serves Gallery Place, Judiciary Square and Archives-Navy Memorial Stations, according to the Washington Post. That infrastructure will have to be replaced.

The sale of the building is part of a larger consolidation effort that the agency says will save more than $130 million over the next 20 years, including the proceeds from the sale of the headquarters. The consolidation of several spaces the transit agency is currently leasing will reduce the number of office spaces that Metro uses from 10 to seven.

Metro has applied to re-zone the building to allow for high-density residential development. In its proposal, Metro says it will not put the building up for sale until the D.C. Zoning Commission makes a decision on the application, which it anticipates will be in the fall of this year. In the meantime, the agency has already contracted a brokerage firm to begin the hunt for new office spaces around the region.

Meanwhile, the transit agency also plans to sell a plot of land in Columbia Heights that has been used as an informal dog park for nearly a decade. After an outcry from neighbors, the city set aside $1.5 million to buy the land in the most recent budget.