FBI = Federal Boondoggle at Impasse

The Hoover Building in Legos (better built than the real thing)

Bottom Line Up Front, as we say on official memos now. The best solution to GSA's search for a replacement FBI Headquarters is to simply build a new building on the site of the current one. 

The self-promotions of Maryland and Virginia in their competition to be the site for the GSA's big FBI HQ construction project has gotten even more unseemly and descended into trash-talking. See: Heated exchange over FBI HQ sparked by Virginia leaders' comments.

State lawmakers resorted to name-calling Wednesday in an ongoing fight over the relocation of a federal building. Virginia leaders struck a nerve with their competitors in Maryland when they pitched themselves as the best location of the new Federal Bureau of Investigation's headquarters. 

[snip] 

At a press conference Wednesday morning, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) said Maryland authorities had not been truthful, in their attempt to persuade federal officials to choose one of the two Prince George's County sites competing for the proposed 2.1-million-square-foot headquarters. He advocated instead for choosing the Virginia location in Springfield. 

"Our friends across the river have done everything they can to try to cook the books to get FBI to locate in Maryland," Connolly said. 

The comments drew a sharp rebuke from Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, who claimed the criteria for siting the new FBI headquarters had been suddenly "manipulated" to favor Virginia's bid after a 10-year process. 

"It is so intellectually dishonest of Virginia and really, to be honest, quite laughable," Alsobrooks said. “The whole thing stinks to high heaven, and anyone who can't smell that, something's wrong with their smeller.”

There are pros and cons to each state's pitch, but let me to cut to the chase. To repeat, the best solution is to simply build a new FBI HQ on the site of the current one. The city of DC is sitting on the option that would best satisfy all of GSA’s site selection criteria, not to mention that the Fed already owns it. That's a win for the taxpayers, I say, even after factoring in the need for swing space. 

The DC Mayor and city council ought to like that option enough to fight for it, but they have so far been absent from this squabble, and I don’t think that’s because they are above grubbing for government bucks. Possibly they’ve been bought off by an insinuation that the Fed will give them the current FBI property for commercial redevelopment. [Insert derisive laughter here.]

I've commented on the FBI's horrendous headquarters building a number of times before; click on the FBI label below to see. The Hoover Building is a spectacular failure in every way, despite being the most expensive federal office building ever at the time it was built. It is long past time to put that wretch of a building out of its misery. 

The rational thinker in me figures GSA will award the project to the Virginia site, which objectively and empirically meets the site selection criteria much better than the Maryland sites. 

But the dreamer in me wishes GSA would come to its senses and surprise DC with the project it hasn't competed for.