GSA Presses Ahead with Homeland Security Consolidation

On the final day of fiscal 2014, the General Services Administration took a step toward launching the next phase of the seven-year-old plan to consolidate the Homeland Security Department’s headquarters at the Southeast Washington campus of St. Elizabeths hospital.

GSA awarded a $139 million contract to renovate the historic Center Building to the Rockville, Md.-based Grunley Construction Co. and the Washington, D.C.-based architectural firm Shalom Baranes Associates. The award followed a competitive bidding process and marks the next step in the consolidation after the Coast Guard headquarters opened July 29, 2013.

The second phase of the controversial three-phase project that has fallen behind schedule comes just weeks after a contentious congressional hearing at which some lawmakers decried wasteful spending and threatened to seek congressional consideration of canceling the DHS move.

The 270,000 square-foot Center Building, a national historic landmark, will house 700 DHS employees when renovation is complete in 2017.

“Placing DHS offices on this campus will not only ensure that the agency has the space it needs to do its job effectively,” said GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini, in a statement. “It will also allow them to reinvest valuable taxpayer dollars into [the department’s] mission. Opening a state-of-the-art facility for the U.S. Coast Guard on this campus was an important first step forward for the Coast Guard and DHS, and we are dedicated to delivering the rest of this project to give DHS the campus and facilities they need to keep our nation safe.”

The two companies have worked together since 2001 on the modernization of the Interior Department’s headquarters on C Street Northwest in Washington.

Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., chairman of the House oversight panel that held the hearing, said in email to Government Executive that “it’s unacceptable that GSA continues to spend taxpayer dollars on DHS’ headquarters at St. Elizabeths after the non-partisan Government Accountability Office identified so many management problems with the project. I continue to believe that DHS and GSA must fully implement GAO’s recommendations and Congress should make future funding contingent on DHS and GSA proposing a new plan that is achievable and affordable.”

Highlighting cost hikes since the project’s conception, Duncan said, “Contracts like this one are part of why the cost is likely to skyrocket further. Without reliable and sound cost estimates, which DHS have refused to update and produce so far, taxpayers will continue to be put further at risk.”