FBI HQ in PG!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good luck attracting civilians and contractors to that location!

I am a civilian... living in that location. I'm looking around and it's... a nice place to live... so not sure what the issue is?

There are great places to live in PG and the county is finally getting the investment it needs. Plus the Greenbelt location is commutable from many of the state’s best school districts - Montgomery County, Howard County and Anne Arundel County. Plus workable from DC and Baltimore.

PP you are responding to and I actually live in Lanham, extremely close to Greenbelt, and I’m really happy with the schools in PG. I’m happy with our home, our neighbors, our access to what we need.

I have lots of friends and family living all over PG County, including in Greenbelt, and agree it's a great place to live. But even if you are the usual DCUM schools snob that must have 10/10 schools (no matter how problematic those rankings are) you can get that too in 3 different directions from the Greenbelt location.

What’s “problematic” about wanting highly rated schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably be years before anything happens

The Greenbelt site is shovel ready, the Springfield site will take years to become buildable.

Everything at the Springfield site - the GSA warehouses - will need to be rebuilt elsewhere. That’s one reason Springfield is such an astronomically expensive option. In addition to demo and site prep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Greenbelt location is $1B cheaper to build. Sorry, but a cost differential like that is going to be the determinant.

But by all means cry harder about NoVA.

Uh huh. Does that cost savings include the infrastructure requirements? Expanding the Wilson Bridge?

Anyway, all the criteria point towards Springfield. It was shenanigans that moved it to Greenbelt, not cost savings.

Who is crying? I don't prefer one place to another but I want what's best for the FBI. Not what's best for WMATA.

The Wilson Bridge is brand new - why would it need to be expanded?

For dedicated bike lanes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH is an agent and said there’s a lot of unhappy people today. He said no one wanted MD. Landover is a dump and Greenbelt, while perhaps slightly better than Landover, is a PITA to get to relative to where most of the workforce lives. Truth be told, people wanted to stay in DC. However, given that wasn’t an option, Springfield was the clear preference.

Ah. Your poor DH. Find another job. He’s not indispensable. I remember when the Department of Navy decided to move from Crystal City to the Washington Navy Yard and the civilians boo-hoo-hooed. Some found other jobs while others retired. The majority showed up at the newly renovated Navy Yard and all was well. The entire region blew up with the reopening of the one rat infested, crime ridden area. I wish the same for Greenbelt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Springfield location is terrible if the goal is to have a unified "campus" similar to other 3 letter agencies. The site simply isn't big enough and that stretch of I-95 is a bottlenecked hellscape of traffic.

The whole notion of "be located near other law enforcement agencies" is pretty bogus in the age of MS Teams.

The HOT lanes are great - and they are talking about expanding them to be bi-directional (not sure how they'll make that fit tbh).

The HOT lanes are great if you're willing to pay for them to escape the traffic congestion Transurban depends on to persuade you to pay for using the HOT lanes.

Slugging has been part of Virginia culture for literally decades. Did you know that?

How's that going these days?

It’s not

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Greenbelt location is $1B cheaper to build. Sorry, but a cost differential like that is going to be the determinant.

But by all means cry harder about NoVA.

Uh huh. Does that cost savings include the infrastructure requirements? Expanding the Wilson Bridge?

Anyway, all the criteria point towards Springfield. It was shenanigans that moved it to Greenbelt, not cost savings.

Who is crying? I don't prefer one place to another but I want what's best for the FBI. Not what's best for WMATA.

The Wilson Bridge is brand new - why would it need to be expanded?

For dedicated bike lanes

I know you think you’re trying to make some kind of cute point, but the Wilson Bridge already has dedicated bike lanes.
https://dcbikeblogger.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/the-woodrow-wilson-memorial-bridge/#:~:text=The%20northern%20span%20of%20the,Huntington%20Metro%20Station%20in%20Virginia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A GSA executive arbitrarily overrules the board’s selection.

Yeah, nothing fishy there…. 🙄

That GSA executive saved the tax payers about $1B and took about 3 years off the construction time frame.

The Greenbelt site is shovel ready to begin the project.

The Springfield site will require 16 warehouses be evacuated. The agencies that use those buildings will have to find alternate locations to put their inventory. Then schedule work to demo all of those buildings and haul the debris away. Then start the new construction. First, it is a waste of taxpayer money for those agencies to have to find locations and move their inventory and delay the project while those agencies do that. Talk about bureaucratic red tape. And the added cost for those agencies, the moving of the inventory (some of which supposedly requires clearances to move) and the demo work will cost nearly $1B.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Greenbelt location is $1B cheaper to build. Sorry, but a cost differential like that is going to be the determinant.

But by all means cry harder about NoVA.

Uh huh. Does that cost savings include the infrastructure requirements? Expanding the Wilson Bridge?

Anyway, all the criteria point towards Springfield. It was shenanigans that moved it to Greenbelt, not cost savings.

Who is crying? I don't prefer one place to another but I want what's best for the FBI. Not what's best for WMATA.

I'm sorry, but the Wilson Bridge does not need to be expanded for several thousand employees to cross the river and that's if all of the staff had to cross the river. But they don't There are about 10K employees and there are some that already live in MD and DC and would not be crossing from Virginia. Additionally, some of the Virginians will be taking the Metro since the Metro stop will be right across the parking lot from the new building. The Woodrow Wilson bridge handles about 250K cars daily. A few thousand more is not going to change much of anything.

No, it wasn't shenanigans to move it to Greenbelt. The GSA has now selected Greenbelt twice and a huge part of this is that it is impractical to relocate the existing government facilities on the Springfield location and it would cost the federal government $1B and several additional years to develop the Springfield site. The Hoover building is currently decaying and is not really safe for the employees to stay there. They need the building sooner, not 3 years later. And it's a waste of taxpayer money to spend all that extra money just because a few thousand people choose to live in Virginia instead of Maryland.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH is an agent and said there’s a lot of unhappy people today. He said no one wanted MD. Landover is a dump and Greenbelt, while perhaps slightly better than Landover, is a PITA to get to relative to where most of the workforce lives. Truth be told, people wanted to stay in DC. However, given that wasn’t an option, Springfield was the clear preference.

Ah. Your poor DH. Find another job. He’s not indispensable. I remember when the Department of Navy decided to move from Crystal City to the Washington Navy Yard and the civilians boo-hoo-hooed. Some found other jobs while others retired. The majority showed up at the newly renovated Navy Yard and all was well. The entire region blew up with the reopening of the one rat infested, crime ridden area. I wish the same for Greenbelt.

Now it's a spot for carjacking Congressmembers.

[Anonymous]

The report and FBI response are available online.

https://www.gsa.gov/reference/freedom-of-information-act-foia/foia-library

I thought PPs were exaggerating but one person really did change the weight of certain criteria and ratings in a way that favored Greenbelt. At the very least, she shouldn’t have been the Site Selection Authority due to conflicts of interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good luck attracting civilians and contractors to that location!

I am a civilian... living in that location. I'm looking around and it's... a nice place to live... so not sure what the issue is?

There are great places to live in PG and the county is finally getting the investment it needs. Plus the Greenbelt location is commutable from many of the state’s best school districts - Montgomery County, Howard County and Anne Arundel County. Plus workable from DC and Baltimore.

PP you are responding to and I actually live in Lanham, extremely close to Greenbelt, and I’m really happy with the schools in PG. I’m happy with our home, our neighbors, our access to what we need.

I have lots of friends and family living all over PG County, including in Greenbelt, and agree it's a great place to live. But even if you are the usual DCUM schools snob that must have 10/10 schools (no matter how problematic those rankings are) you can get that too in 3 different directions from the Greenbelt location.

What’s “problematic” about wanting highly rated schools?

The public schools in Greenbelt are actually not lower rated than those in Springfield. Look it up!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH is an agent and said there’s a lot of unhappy people today. He said no one wanted MD. Landover is a dump and Greenbelt, while perhaps slightly better than Landover, is a PITA to get to relative to where most of the workforce lives. Truth be told, people wanted to stay in DC. However, given that wasn’t an option, Springfield was the clear preference.

Ah. Your poor DH. Find another job. He’s not indispensable. I remember when the Department of Navy decided to move from Crystal City to the Washington Navy Yard and the civilians boo-hoo-hooed. Some found other jobs while others retired. The majority showed up at the newly renovated Navy Yard and all was well. The entire region blew up with the reopening of the one rat infested, crime ridden area. I wish the same for Greenbelt.

^ Show some basic sympathy. It's human to have preferences about where your workplace is, especially if it changes from whatever your current life is built around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH is an agent and said there’s a lot of unhappy people today. He said no one wanted MD. Landover is a dump and Greenbelt, while perhaps slightly better than Landover, is a PITA to get to relative to where most of the workforce lives. Truth be told, people wanted to stay in DC. However, given that wasn’t an option, Springfield was the clear preference.

Ah. Your poor DH. Find another job. He’s not indispensable. I remember when the Department of Navy decided to move from Crystal City to the Washington Navy Yard and the civilians boo-hoo-hooed. Some found other jobs while others retired. The majority showed up at the newly renovated Navy Yard and all was well. The entire region blew up with the reopening of the one rat infested, crime ridden area. I wish the same for Greenbelt.

Now it's a spot for carjacking Congressmembers.

Yeah, the bloom is off the rose at Navy Yard. Crystal City remains crime free while in Navy Yard, Uber drivers are killed, shootings and carjackings abound.

Poor Navy.

[Anonymous]

This decision will be reversed and Springfield will be the location.

[Anonymous]

See pp 3 here: https://www.gsa.gov/system/files/FBI%20HQ%20Site%20Selection%20Decision%20Fact%20Sheet%20%282%29.pdf

If you excluded the equity and sustainability score only for Greenbelt, keep these originally weighted scores for the other two sites, Greenbelt would still come out ahead.