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FBI director Kash Patel said the agency’s historic-but-aging headquarters in Washington would be “shut down permanently” as he shifts personnel into the building once occupied by the now-defunct US Agency for International Development.”After more than 20 years of failed attempts, we finalised a plan to permanently close the FBI’s Hoover headquarters and move the workforce into a safe, modern facility,” Patel said in a post Friday on X, adding that it would save taxpayer funds and better serve the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s requirements.Built in the brutalist architectural style and opened on Pennsylvania Avenue in 1975, the J. Edgar Hoover building has long had detractors who said it was decrepit and no longer suited for the FBI. Yet the battle over whether and where to relocate the headquarters dragged on for years.Assuming the long-promised move to the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center takes place, it will keep the agency’s top personnel near the justice department, White House and other federal institutions. But it’s a setback for Maryland, which in 2023 was promised the new headquarters after a lengthy search. (Bloomberg)
