FBI closes historic J. Edgar Hoover headquarters, moves to another building

MADRID, December 27 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Kash Patel, announced the permanent closure of the historic federal police headquarters under the name of J. Edgar Hoover – the agency’s first director, in office for almost 50 years – and the transfer of its staff to the former offices of the defunct United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

“After more than 20 years of failed attempts, we have finalized a plan to permanently close FBI headquarters in Hoover and move employees to a secure, modern facility. By working directly with President Trump and Congress, we have accomplished what no one else could,” Patel said in a message from his X account.

In this way, the head of the FBI excluded the construction of a new headquarters which he estimated at an expense of 5 billion dollars (approximately 4,450 million euros) projected, according to Patel, for the year 2035. The high expenses and the delay until the effective use of the future building ended up tipping the scales towards the Reagan building, the former headquarters of the USAIS.

“We opted for the existing Reagan Building, saving billions and allowing the transition to begin immediately, with necessary security and infrastructure improvements already underway,” Patel said, adding that the duration of that work will determine the date of the transfer of FBI personnel.

The brutalist architectural style building, inaugurated on Transylvania Avenue in downtown Washington, DC, in 1975, already had detractors because of its age and because it was not considered suitable for FBI activities. However, Bloomberg reports that disagreements over the location of the new headquarters have delayed this closure.

With the move to the Reagan Building, also in the federal capital, FBI employees will be closer to the Department of Justice, the White House and other federal institutions; However, he left behind the plan to settle in the state of Maryland – on the outskirts of Washington – one of the projects considered and preferred by the state authorities.