🔗 Share this article Federal Bureau of Investigation to Leave Iconic Concrete J. Edgar Hoover Headquarters in Washington DC The leadership of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has announced a historic plan: the bureau will shutter for good its sprawling main building and transition personnel to already established office spaces. Relocation Plans for the Top Investigative Organization According to a recent statement, the older J. Edgar Hoover Building, a fixture in central Washington, will be decommissioned. The employees will be stationed in already built locations in other parts of the city. This strategic change will see a number of personnel taking over offices within the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, which contained the offices of another government department. “Finally, after years of delay, we finalized a plan to forever shutter the FBI’s Hoover headquarters and move the workforce into a secure and contemporary building,” the announcement said. Modernization and Homeland Defense Focus The decision is framed as a way to more wisely spend funding. Officials stated that this plan focuses spending appropriately: on defending the homeland, fighting crime, and protecting national security. It is also meant to providing the modern FBI with better tools for much less money compared to renovating the current headquarters. Political Controversies and the Headquarters' History This announcement comes after previous political controversies concerning the agency's headquarters location. Earlier, officials from a nearby state had initiated legal action over the termination of a congressional plan to move the main offices to their state, arguing that funds had already been allocated by Congress for that purpose. The J. Edgar Hoover Building itself is a prominent example of Brutalist design, conceived and built in the 1960s. Its aesthetic has long been a point of controversy, as it broke with the look of other federal buildings in the city. Its own namesake, J. Edgar Hoover, was reportedly critical of the structure, once lambasting it as “a terrible eyesore ever built in the city of Washington.”