FBI's Fairfax Agents Packing For Pr. William

Employees in Tysons currently work out of several floors covering about 100,000 square feet of a dark-colored office building on Leesburg Pike. Cars are free to drive about 50 feet from the entrance to the building, which also houses a bank and a developer.

The lack of security was a prime motivation for the move -- federal rules require new FBI buildings to be set back at least 100 feet from traffic -- along with the increasingly crowded conditions in Tysons.

FBI officials searched elsewhere in Fairfax and in Loudoun County but each site was not secure enough or cost too much, Persichini said.

Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D) said he regretted losing the FBI but is not worried that the move could presage an exodus to the outer suburbs. Connolly added that the "downside" of the FBI's move is that "you're obviously going to create some problems in terms of commuting time for your employees."

In Prince William, officials were only too happy to return the bureau's interest. "It's a significant project in terms of the county's identity," said Jason Grant, spokesman for the county's Department of Economic Development. Many FBI agents live in Prince William, officials said, and the FBI Academy is already there, in Quantico.

Under the deal, announced last year, the Prince William Board of Supervisors agreed to an option to sell the land in the Innovation@Prince William office park. The federal General Services Administration then chose the Fairfax-based Peterson Cos. as the developer and owner and transferred the option to the company. Peterson will lease the 199,110-square-foot building to the FBI.

The concrete and glass building, scheduled to open in December 2007, will be a limestone color and will feature a fitness center and a heavily landscaped outdoor area with jogging paths and a picnic area next to a meadow and a small stream. Special security features will make it "basically blast-resistant," said Bill Smith, a senior vice president at Peterson.

He said the fingerprint theme on the elevators emerged from the company's proposal, which was delivered in an FBI-style metal evidence box with a fingerprint on the cover. "It's sort of symbolic of the bureau and its history," Smith said.

The new building will be about 40 miles from the U.S. attorney's office in Alexandria, where agents frequently travel to meet with prosecutors, bring witnesses to grand jury sessions or testify before the grand jury or in court. Some Northern Virginia-based agents also frequently travel to the District and occasionally to Maryland, law enforcement officials said. To get back to Prince William, agents will have to navigate a 20-mile stretch of I-66 west from the Beltway, sometimes during rush hour, plus four miles on a mostly rural section of the Prince William Parkway near Manassas.

The FBI's Tysons office, by contrast, is about 17 miles from the U.S. attorney's office.

"It makes absolutely no sense," said one FBI agent, who is not an official spokesperson and requested anonymity. "We've all just been scratching our heads and thinking, 'How did they come up with this?' "

Other agents and law enforcement officials said the concerns about traffic will change the tenor of investigations, leading to delays or even cancellations of key meetings between agents and witnesses or agents and prosecutors. "It's just a heck of a lot easier to work a case if the person is near you," said one law enforcement official who works with FBI agents and is not authorized to talk about the move.

Long drives can be problematic for agents because the bureau has been imposing limits for the past year on what they can spend on gasoline.

Persichini said the crunch came because the bureau's budget, set two years in advance, did not anticipate increases in the price of gas. He said the new building will increase efficiency because its size will allow the FBI to consolidate operations, shuttering warehouses that contain closed case files.

"Change is difficult," Persichini said. "I understand that. We all get very comfortable. But we have to be flexible."

Staff writer Susan Schmidt contributed to this report.