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The directorate of the FBI has declared a historic move: the bureau will shutter for good its longtime headquarters and move personnel to different facilities.

A New Chapter for the Top Investigative Agency

According to a new announcement, the ageing J. Edgar Hoover Building, a landmark in downtown DC, will be shut down. The employees will be stationed in existing locations across the capital.

This logistical shift will see a portion of personnel occupying space within the Reagan Building, which contained the offices of another government department.

“After more than 20 years of failed attempts, we have secured a strategy to completely vacate the FBI’s Hoover headquarters and move the workforce into a safe, modern facility,” the announcement said.

Modernization and National Security Focus

The decision is described as a way to redirect taxpayer money. Officials stated that this action puts resources where they belong: on combating threats, law enforcement, and safeguarding the country.

It is also presented as providing the bureau's current workforce with superior resources at a fraction of the cost compared to renovating the current headquarters.

Legal Challenges and the Building's History

This announcement comes after previous political challenges concerning the agency's headquarters location. Earlier, state leaders had sued over the termination of a congressional plan to move the main offices to their jurisdiction, arguing that appropriations had already been allocated by Congress for that purpose.

The J. Edgar Hoover Building itself is a prominent example of Brutalist design, designed and constructed in the 1960s. Its appearance has long been a subject of debate, as it diverged sharply from the look of other federal buildings in the city.

Its own former director, J. Edgar Hoover, was famously critical of the building, once lambasting it as “a terrible eyesore ever built in the city of Washington.”