FBI To Move Headquarters To Former USAID Space On Pennsylvania Avenue

The Trump administration is moving to keep the FBI's headquarters in downtown D.C., officially killing a plan to move the agency to suburban Maryland.

The FBI plans to exchange its longtime home at the J. Edgar Hoover Building for the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue, the agency announced Tuesday afternoon after The Washington Post first reported the plan. 

“Moving to the Ronald Reagan Building is the most cost effective and resource efficient way to carry out our mission to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement, also calling it a “historic moment” for the agency.

The Reagan building was home to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which the Trump administration shut down and folded into the State Department. It also houses U.S. Customs and Border Protection and private tenants. 

The General Services Administration said in a release that it will work with CBP “to fulfill their mission while the transition of the FBI to the Reagan building commences.” It didn’t say what the administration plans to do with the 50-year-old Hoover building. 

President Donald Trump in March vowed to stop the FBI's planned move to Greenbelt, Maryland, a plan the Biden administration had announced in November 2023.  

“We’re going to stop it — not going to let that happen,” Trump said in March.  

The GSA under former President Joe Biden had selected the 61-acre site next to the Greenbelt Metro station for a new 2.1M SF headquarters for the FBI. That site was selected from three finalists in Maryland and Virginia.

The selection came after a yearslong back and forth, including the Obama administration initially selecting the three finalists, the first Trump administration scrapping that plan and seeking to keep the agency downtown, and then the Biden administration reviving the suburban plan with the same three finalists. 

Trump’s top real estate official at the GSA, Public Buildings Service Commissioner Michael Peters, said in a statement Tuesday that the plan to move the headquarters to the suburbs would have cost billions of dollars. 

“This move not only provides a world-class location for the FBI’s public servants, but it also saves Americans billions of dollars on new construction and avoids more than $300 million in deferred maintenance costs at the J. Edgar Hoover facility,” Peters said. 

The Hoover Building has been crumbling for more than a decade. Netting has been placed around its perimeter to keep debris from falling and hitting pedestrians, an FBI official told Congress in 2023. Agents and employees documented concrete falling on workspaces and equipment, pipes bursting and “commonplace” plumbing challenges that have caused damage to FBI property.

“They needed to make a creative solution for the FBI, and this is what it is that they're doing,” Darian LeBlanc, head of Cushman & Wakefield's Government Services Group, told Bisnow Tuesday after the announcement. “It's logical, in my opinion.” 

News of the updated plan for the FBI comes less than a week after the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced its plans to move from its 1960s-era brutalist home in Southwest D.C. to Alexandria, displacing the National Science Foundation in the process. 

“We may see these dominos continue to fall in terms of agencies being moved from one location to another, creating a ripple effect where other agencies need homes,” LeBlanc said. 

UPDATE, JULY 1, 5:15 P.M. ET: This story has been updated to include statements from FBI and GSA officials and commentary from LeBlanc.