Housing Department to Move Headquarters, Booting National Science Foundation
It is the first major shift of a federal agency's operations out of the capital under President Trump's plans to relocate parts of the government. But once the housing agency moves in, the science foundation will need to move out. Union representatives for the foundation's employees said that more than 1,833 people with the agency work in the building, and that they did not know where those employees would go.
Scott Turner, the housing secretary, told employees at the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building, the agency's current headquarters just south of the National Mall, that the change would reinvigorate workers and save taxpayer dollars.
The current headquarters, which date to the mid-1960s, face more than $500 million in deferred maintenance and modernization needs, according to federal officials.
Michael Peters, the public buildings service commissioner at the General Services Administration, which oversees the federal real estate portfolio, said that federal officials were still arranging a timeline for moving science foundation staff out of the building.
'We're going to work with N.S.F. to identify the best solution for them,' said Mr. Peters, who spoke at a news conference on Wednesday with Mr. Turner and Glenn Youngkin, the Republican governor of Virginia.
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