New FBI Headquarters In Springfield Supported By Youngkin, VA Congressional Delegation

SPRINGFIELD, VA — Virginia’s political leaders are pushing for the federal government to choose Springfield as the new site for the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as they battle with Maryland over which state will become the new home of the law enforcement agency.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin, together with Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and Reps. Gerry Connolly, Don Beyer and Abigail Spanberger, are planning a news conference on Wednesday to lay out the reasons why they believe the Springfield location is better suited than the two proposed sites in Maryland for the $2.5 billion FBI headquarters project.

The push by Youngkin and Virginia's congressional delegation comes a week after the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors reiterated its support for building the new FBI headquarters in Springfield.

The FBI and the General Services Administration are working to finalize a location for the new headquarters after years of work on the project. In December, Maryland congressional leaders secured language in a federal spending bill that gave both Maryland and Virginia 90 more days to make final presentations to the GSA.

The Maryland and Virginia consultations with the GSA are expected to begin the week of Feb. 27 or March 6.

READ ALSO: Springfield Site For FBI Headquarters Backed By Fairfax County Board

In a recent letter sent to the GSA and FBI, Youngkin, along with most members of the congressional delegation in Virginia, including Democrats and Republicans, detailed the ways in which Springfield best meets the five selection criteria set by the GSA and FBI in choosing a new headquarters: support for the FBI mission requirement; transportation access; site development flexibility; promoting sustainable siting and advancing equity; and cost.

“Springfield would provide the men and women of the FBI with a location that best enables them to meet their critical law enforcement and national security missions, allow GSA to execute that according to best practices in public real estate acquisitions, and provide the government with a strong and exciting opportunity to meet its community investment goals,” the Virginia lawmakers wrote in the letter.

The proposed site in Springfield would be located at a GSA warehouse complex on Loisdale Road, which connects with Franconia Road to the north and Fairfax County Parkway to the south. The proposed site is located adjacent to the Franconia-Springfield Metro Station. The Metrorail Blue line serves this station during all operating hours, and the Yellow line serves the station during peak periods.

In a 2022 fiscal spending bill, Congress directed the GSA to select a new site for the FBI headquarters “as expeditiously as possible” from one of the three identified sites: Springfield; Greenbelt, Maryland; and Landover, Maryland.

Virginia officials point out that the FBI Academy's location in Quantico south on Interstate 95 would make the Springfield site ideal for the new headquarters.

"The GSA Springfield site offers superior advantages in serving both the FBI mission and its personnel — in part given its proximity to key assets Quantico and the Department of Justice," Youngkin and the congressional delegation said in their letter.

The current FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C. opened to its first employees in June 1974. At that time, FBI headquarters offices were housed in nine separate locations. The last employees moved into the building in June 1977.

Over the past dozen years, FBI officials have complained that the D.C. headquarters is obsolete, inefficient and no longer meets the needs of an organization that has grown dramatically in the last 45 years. The building, they contend, also does not meet the FBI’s long-term security needs.