The FBI will permanently close the ageing J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C., and relocate personnel into existing office space, including the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. Director Kash Patel said the move ends "more than 20 years of failed attempts," will modernise facilities and reallocate resources to homeland defence and crime-fighting. Maryland officials previously sued after a proposed move to their state was cancelled despite congressional funding.
FBI to Permanently Close J. Edgar Hoover Building; Staff to Move Into Ronald Reagan Center
The J Edgar Hoover building, in 2024 in Washington DC.Photograph: Kent Nishimura/Getty Images
The FBI director, Kash Patel, announced that the agency will permanently close the ageing J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C., and relocate staff into existing office space elsewhere in the capital. The move aims to provide modern, safer facilities while redirecting resources toward core law-enforcement priorities.
Some employees will be reassigned to the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center to occupy former offices of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which the Trump administration dismantled earlier this year. The plan, Patel said, ends decades of unsuccessful relocation efforts and will save money compared with building or buying a new headquarters.
Kash Patel on X: "After more than 20 years of failed attempts, we finalized a plan to permanently close the FBI's Hoover headquarters and move the workforce into a safe, modern facility. The Hoover Building will be shut down permanently."
Patel added that the reorganisation will "put resources where they belong: defending the homeland, crushing violent crime, and protecting national security," and that it "delivers better tools for today’s FBI workforce at a fraction of the cost."
In November, Maryland officials sued the Trump administration after plans to move the bureau’s headquarters to the state were scrapped. The lawsuit noted that Congress had already appropriated funds for the proposed relocation.
The J. Edgar Hoover Building, conceived, designed and built in the 1960s in a stark brutalist style, has long been criticised for clashing with the surrounding federal architecture. Former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover reportedly called it "the greatest monstrosity ever constructed in the history of Washington." The building’s closure marks the end of a contentious chapter in the bureau’s physical presence in the capital.
