Kash Patel Announces New FBI Headquarters at Reagan Building, Scraps Biden-Era Plan

FBI Director Kash Patel revealed Tuesday that the bureau will officially relocate its headquarters to the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., ending a years-long debate over the future of the agency’s base of operations.

The decision, made in partnership with the General Services Administration (GSA), bypasses the original Biden-era plan to construct a $2.5 billion facility in suburban Maryland — a move blocked by President Donald Trump, who insisted the FBI remain in the nation’s capital.

“This is a historic moment for the FBI,” Patel said in a statement. “Moving to the Ronald Reagan Building is the most cost-effective and resource-efficient way to carry out our mission to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution. We’re giving our agents a safer and more modern place to work.”

The Reagan Building, located on Pennsylvania Avenue, currently houses U.S. Customs and Border Protection and previously served as headquarters for USAID — which was dissolved earlier this year and folded into the State Department.

GSA Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian praised the decision, noting the years of deterioration at the J. Edgar Hoover Building, which the FBI has occupied since 1975. “It’s a textbook case of what happens when maintenance is deferred for decades,” Ehikian said, citing concrete decay and failing infrastructure.

Talks about moving the FBI have been ongoing for nearly two decades. A 2011 GAO report concluded the Hoover building was “inefficient” and in urgent need of repair. Under President Biden, the agency had been slated to move to Maryland, a proposal fiercely pushed by Democrats in the state’s congressional delegation.

But under President Trump’s direction, that plan was scrapped in favor of keeping the bureau anchored in D.C.

Patel, who took over as FBI Director earlier this year, had previously vowed to shutter the Hoover Building and reopen it as a “museum of the deep state.” He has also called for decentralizing the FBI, relocating employees across the country to reduce the agency’s Beltway entrenchment.

The Reagan Building move is being pitched as a practical, cost-saving step that advances that goal while delivering a symbolic blow to the old FBI order.