GSA and FBI scrapped Congress's mandated Greenbelt, Maryland headquarters site, redirecting $1.1 billion to the Reagan Building

On July 1, 2025, the General Services Administration and FBI Director Kash Patel announced that the FBI would abandon the Greenbelt, Maryland site the GSA had selected in 2022-23 as the bureau's new consolidated headquarters, and would instead relocate FBI headquarters into the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington, D.C., less than half a mile from its current location. The switch set aside a formal GSA site-selection process that had chosen Greenbelt over competing sites in Landover, Maryland and Springfield, Virginia, and for which Congress had appropriated more than $1.1 billion. Patel called the move "a historic moment for the FBI"; officials cited more than $300 million in deferred-maintenance costs at the bureau's current J. Edgar Hoover Building and the Reagan Building's proximity to the Justice Department as the rationale for redirecting the congressionally appropriated funds toward the new site.

The reversal came after years of deliberation over the FBI's long-planned suburban headquarters, a project Maryland's congressional delegation had treated as settled once GSA selected Greenbelt in 2023. Maryland officials said the switch bypassed the statutory site-selection process Congress had established and improperly redirected funds Congress had earmarked for the Greenbelt project toward a different one.

Updates

2025-11-06 — Maryland and Prince George's County sued over the switch [3, 4]

The State of Maryland and Prince George's County filed suit against the administration in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, alleging the GSA and FBI violated the Administrative Procedure Act by abandoning the Greenbelt site-selection decision and attempting to redirect the congressionally appropriated funds to the Reagan Building project instead. Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said the administration was trying to "illegally reprogram and transfer" the appropriated money.

2026-08-17 — Federal judge ruled the switch unlawful and blocked it [5, 6, 7]

U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang ruled for Maryland and Prince George's County, finding the administration's plan to abandon Greenbelt for the Reagan Building violated the Administrative Procedure Act, and blocked both the relocation to the Reagan Building and the redirection of the appropriated funds. Brown said the ruling meant "when Congress makes a decision, the Federal Government cannot simply ignore it because they do not like the outcome."