Major Meetings Planned in PG County to Discuss FBI Headquarters Relocation

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MD — The U.S. General Services Administration will be holding a series of public meetings to discuss the impacts of placing a new FBI headquarters at either Greenbelt or Landover in Prince George's County, or Springfield in Virginia.

The Greenbelt meeting will be held on Monday, Feb. 13 at Greenbelt Public Library, the Springfield meeting will take place Feb. 14 at Robert E. Lee High School, and the Landover meeting will happen on Feb. 15 at Kentland Community Center.

GSA in the midst of preparing a final environmental impact statement for a new FBI headquarters. The final EIS examines the issue of parking, which the draft EIS determined was insufficient at the Greenbelt and Springfield sites.

"We are holding public meetings for each site to provide information about the methodology for changes in the modal splits, reasons for the change, impacts of the additional vehicles, and the resulting mitigations," according to a statement from the GSA. "It should be noted that the amount of parking at the Landover, MD site did not change from the Draft EIS; however, there were some revisions to the transportation mitigation measures that may be of interest."

Back in October, authorities delayed the decision on where to put a new headquarters for the FBI until March. The $2 billion project would consolidate all of the 5,000 employees at the current FBI headquarters at the J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown D.C. along with multiple FBI divisions throughout the region. The Hoover building has housed the agency since 1975, and now the GSA believes a new facility is necessary for the future of the agency.

The biggest change for the FBI came after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, when the agency -- like many others -- brought on a lot more employees. GSA first issued a request for information for a new site back in December 2012, and narrowed it down to three sites in July 2014. The new facility would span 2.1 million square feet and accommodate 11,055 employees, and would cost about $2.5 billion to build.

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