Federal Offices May Go To St. E's

Homeland Security Needs Massive Site

Homeland Security could occupy as much as 4.5 million square feet on the west side of the St. Elizabeths campus. (By Bill O'leary -- The Washington Post)

Federal officials are looking to move some of the Department of Homeland Security offices to the St. Elizabeths Hospital campus in Southeast Washington, a plan that would create a massive federal facility and possibly relocate thousands of regional employees.

Federal agencies could eventually occupy as much as 4.5 million square feet on the west campus of St. Elizabeths, a historic site with breathtaking views of downtown, according to the General Services Administration and city officials involved in the effort. In comparison, the Pentagon has a floor area of 6.5 million square feet.

The plan would create the largest new federal facility in the District since the 3 million-square-foot Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, on Pennsylvania Avenue, opened in 1998.

Homeland Security has publicly announced only that one of its divisions, the U.S. Coast Guard, is moving to St. Elizabeths. The plan is to build a 1.3 million-square-foot, $330 million Coast Guard headquarters there by 2010.

Homeland Security has roughly 5 million square feet of offices in 61 locations in the metropolitan area, some in leased private buildings or in facilities that would not meet current security requirements, according to federal officials and commercial brokers.

The department may be following in the steps of the Defense Department. Last year, a military base-closing commission voted to move thousands of defense-related workers out of leased commercial office space and onto secure military bases.

"Because we can provide a secure environment, they are looking at, over time, relocating components of DHS," a GSA spokesman who spoke on condition of anonymity said, referring to the St. Elizabeths site. "DHS itself is still in the process of figuring out what components to locate there."

It remains unclear, for example, whether Homeland Security's current headquarters, off Nebraska Avenue NW, would move.

City officials said they are participating in the planning process but have reservations about the size of the project and its impact on the surrounding community. The 176-acre site, which is owned by the federal government, is between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and the Anacostia Freeway and just south of the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge. The eastern part of the hospital campus is owned by the District and still includes a working mental hospital.

"Our concern has been about whether the amount of square footage could fit on the property, given the constraints of historic preservation," said Rosa Lynn, an assistant director in the city's office of planning, referring to the 61 landmark Civil War-era buildings there.

There are also questions about whether the area's infrastructure could support so many workers.

"If we're filling 4.5 million square feet of space, getting people in and out is a concern," Lynn said. But she acknowledged that the District has little leverage because of the federal government's ownership.