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Business Insider
Bill Freehling is a business writer for The Free Lance-Star and Fredericksburg.com. This blog is on Fredericksburg-area business. Send an e-mail to Bill Freehling.
Caroline County site submitted for FBI headquarters
The developers of Carmel Church Station in Caroline County have suggested the site as a good home for the FBI’s new headquarters.
Litt Thompson, who is one of Carmel Church Station’s developers, said he has submitted the site to the General Services Administration for consideration as the FBI’s future home.
Carmel Church Station, which includes about 1,100 acres off the Carmel Church exit of Interstate 95, is in the early planning stages. Plans eventually call for a new train station there along with large numbers of new homes and commercial space.
Thompson said Carmel Church’s attributes include a safe location outside Washington, lower development costs, the possibilities for future growth, access to a new train station envisioned in the future, less traffic congestion and the chance for economic development in a rural county.
The Caroline site joins a long list of possibilities that the GSA has been asked to consider for a relocated FBI headquarters. Stafford and Spotsylvania counties have also suggested that they would make a good home for the FBI, pointing out that much of the agency’s workforce already lives in the region.
The FBI headquarters are now at the deteriorating J. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. The GSA has been asking developers and localities to submit candidates for a new headquarters that could include about 2 million square feet of office space and hold about 11,000 workers.
The GSA has suggested that it could swap the Hoover building for a new headquarters campus. The GSA has said that the ideal site would have up to 55 acres and be close to a Metro station and the Beltway.
Competition for the headquarters has been fierce among Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Localities around all sides of Washington have throw their names in the hat.
Monday afternoon was the deadline for responding to a request for information. The GSA is expected to ask for more detailed proposals at some point, though the timing is unclear.
