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The leadership of the FBI has declared a major plan: the bureau will permanently close its sprawling headquarters and transition personnel to other facilities.

Strategic Move for the Nation's Premier Investigative Agency

According to a recent announcement, the aging J. Edgar Hoover Building, a landmark in downtown DC, will be shut down. The employees will be housed in already built locations elsewhere.

This logistical shift will see a number of personnel moving into offices within the Reagan Building, which contained the offices of another federal agency.

“Following decades of unsuccessful plans, we put together a deal to forever shutter the FBI’s Hoover headquarters and move the workforce into a secure and contemporary building,” the statement said.

Modernization and Homeland Defense Priorities

The move is described as a way to more wisely spend public resources. Leadership noted that this action puts resources where they belong: on defending the homeland, fighting crime, and safeguarding the country.

It is also meant to providing the agency's personnel with superior resources for much less money compared to renovating the older structure.

Legal Challenges and the Building's History

This announcement comes after recent legal controversies concerning the agency's future home. Earlier, officials from a nearby state had sued over the cancellation of an earlier proposal to move the main offices to their jurisdiction, arguing that money had already been allocated by lawmakers for that purpose.

The J. Edgar Hoover Building itself is a notable example of concrete-heavy design, planned and erected in the mid-20th century. Its aesthetic has long been a point of debate, as it broke with the architectural style of most government structures in the capital.

Its own former director, J. Edgar Hoover, was famously dismissive of the structure, once lambasting it as “the ugliest building ever built in the history of Washington.”