A July 9 Washington Post article reported that several sites in Prince George’s County are in the running to make the final consideration list for a new Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) campus headquarters.  The article noted that the General Services Administration (GSA) is expected to release the finalist list within a few days amongst intense competition from Maryland, Virginia and District of Columbia officials.  The article highlighted both the strict requirements for locating the new headquarters and some of the reasons why Prince George’s might make the final cut:

Among the sites that have likely been proposed are the parking lot area at Greenbelt Metro station, a combination of public and private land in Springfield, the former Landover Mall and Poplar Point, a waterfront property in Southeast D.C.  …

All of the above offer the possibility for construction of a 2.1 million-square-foot campus within two-and-a-half  miles of the Beltway and two miles of a Metro station, requirements that eliminated more than a dozen other locations.

But if the FBI competition is a beauty contest, many of the contestants are covered with warts.

There is a black box CIA facility on the Springfield site, for instance, and the National Park Service police still operate on Poplar Point. Neither has plans to move and both sites require environmental cleanup. Poplar Point is probably too small.

The article also noted the competition by politicians to secure the site within their district:

The search has drawn intense jockeying from local members of Congress, with both Virginia and Maryland politicos holding press events that felt like pep rallies on behalf of their states.  …

All the machinations are probably music to the ears of  Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Rep. Steny Hoyer, both Maryland Democrats, who have 82 acres lined up in Greenbelt and, just in case, another 88 in Landover.

The intrigue should end for good late next year, when the GSA plans to choose a site.