GSA Picks Site for new FBI Complex in VA

The General Services Administration (GSA) Mid-Atlantic Region announced that it has selected and purchased approximately 60 acres of land for the site of the FBI's Central Records Complex (CRC) in Winchester/Frederick County, Virginia. The federal agency paid $4.75 million for a site in Frederick County, Virginia off U.S. 50 where it plans to build a $109 million facility where more than 440 employees would work, according to a Virginia Business report. The purchase and development plan is part of the agency's strategy to condense the bureau's vast records repositories into one site.

"The centralization of FBI records consolidates records from 265 current locations into a single facility," said Joanna Rosato, Regional Commissioner of GSA's Public Buildings Service in the Mid-Atlantic Region, in a press release. "The CRC will provide the infrastructure and technology for the FBI to continue to digitize records on demand."

The site at 2117 Millwood Pike, known as Arcadia, will support construction of approximately 256,000 Gross Square Feet facility, including a secure perimeter, visitor screening center and truck screening facility, guard booth, and surface parking lot. The new facility will be National Archives and Records Administration-compliant secured, with environmentally conditioned, fire-protected space that will provide records storage combined with material handling and operational support areas. The FBI said it digitizes at least 20 million pages per year to make them searchable and CRC will house both infrastructure and technology for the bureau to carry out the digitization effort.

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GSA Releases Renderings for DC Homeland Security HQ

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) announced this week that it had begun its search for contractors to build a new Department of Homeland Security headquarters and released renderings of the new project for review. The GSA posted a request for qualifications Monday to FedBizOpps.gov outlining plans to renovate the Center Building on the St. Elizabeths campus on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in Southeast D.C., a design-build project estimated to cost between $100 million and $140 million, according to a Washington Business Journal article. GSA expects to award the contract in August, with a completion date set for July 1, 2017. The cost of the renovation of the building that dates back to the late 1800s has been pegged at between $100 million to $140 million, reports GlobeSt.com.

St. Elizabeths was established by Congress in 1855 as a government hospital, divided into two campuses. The West Campus is presently owned by the federal government and is under the custody and control of GSA. The development of St. Elizabeths is the consolidation site for the Department of Homeland Security, with Congress having already approved $155 million for the GSA to bring more than 14,000 employees to the campus. DHS's current facilities are spread among more than 40 buildings in the Washington, DC area; DHS's new headquarters will allow for more efficient incident management response and command-and-control operations. The first phase of the consolidation – the new Coast Guard headquarters – was completed and occupied by the Coast Guard last year, according to a Federal Times report.

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