Planning Agency Approves Homeland Security Complex

"More study should be done on what exactly the community benefits will be," she said. "And there's the traffic. There will be an overwhelming influx of people using roads and the Metro."

The plan envisions widening part of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and developing an access road on the southwestern part of the campus. Shuttle buses would run from the Metro.

St. Elizabeths Hospital was built when Dorothea Dix, the social reformer, persuaded Congress to provide $100,000 for a model psychiatric hospital in 1852. The campus is thought to exemplify the ideas of a 19th-century movement that sought to improve care for the mentally ill through therapeutic design and environment.

District officials and the National Capital Planning Commission had balked at earlier plans to set up a giant agency headquarters on the western campus of St. Elizabeths, fearing that development would overwhelm the site.

To assuage their concerns, officials moved some of the proposed headquarters facilities onto the east campus, reduced the amount of parking and shifted new buildings away from the historic core.

Under the new plan, about 11,000 employees would work in 3.8 million square feet of space on the west campus, and the remaining 3,000 would be on the east campus, where the District still runs a mental health facility. The sites would have parking for about 5,000 cars.

Fifty-two of the 62 historic structures on the grounds would be renovated and used by the agency, including the Center Building, a red-brick structure in the Gothic-revival style that was designed by Thomas U. Walter, the architect responsible for the U.S. Capitol dome.

The first building to be constructed would be the Coast Guard headquarters. In addition to offices, the site would have a barbershop, cafeteria, child-care center and gym.

Authorities have been trying for years to find an institution to take over the long-neglected St. Elizabeths. But the cost of rescuing the run-down 19th-century buildings and overhauling the infrastructure was prohibitive.

Homeland Security officials said the site is ideal for their agency. The western campus is the largest piece of unused federal land in Washington, and the new buildings would sit far enough back from the street to avoid being shattered by a car bomb.

Staff writer Paul Schwartzman contributed to this story.