Richard L. Haley II, assistant director at the FBI‘s facilities and finance division, has told a House subcommittee he believes consolidating the bureau’s offices into a new headquarters will increase collaboration among special agents, analysts and other professional staff members.
He said in a written testimony published Tuesday the J. Edgar Hoover building in Washington has been occupied by the bureau since 1974 and cannot accomodate a sheer number of personnel and technical systems necessary to sustain agency operations.
“A key challenge inhibiting our ability to address current and future threats is the lack of a headquarters facility that fully fosters collaboration, intelligence sharing, and is dynamic,” he told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s subcommittee on economic development, public buildings and emergency management.
He noted the current FBI HQ does not comply with standards established by the Interagency Security Committee and will be difficult to retrofit due to the manner in which the facility was constructed.
“Our goal is to have built a fully consolidated, secure, resilient intelligence community-worthy facility,” he added to subcommittee members.
Haley said the bureau’s consolidation project aims to reduce footprint by up to 800,000 rentable square feet and save the government tens of millions of dollars in annual lease costs.
