Norton Says GSA Announcement of Contractors for Building for DHS Secretary in Ward 8 Signals Project will be Completed

WAHSINGTON, D.C.--Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said that the General Services Administration (GSA) has kept its promise in announcing the contractors for the large Center Building at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) headquarters complex at St. Elizabeths in Ward 8 — Grunley Construction Company and Shalom Baranes Associates. Norton said that moving forward with the Center Building, which will house the DHS secretary and top officials and another 700 DHS employees, is a sure indication that the entire project will be completed.

"It has been clear for some time that with specialized infrastructure in the ground, including tailored IT, the DHS complex would be completed," said Norton. "Now with the Secretary on site, there can be little doubt that the project, slowed because of the annual appropriation, may be in a slower lane, but it will be completed. Otherwise, the government would not only lose much of the value of its investment already placed on site, it would spend millions more than it would cost to complete the complex because of the cost of expensive leases around the region."

Norton also cited a cover letter to a Senate report on the St. Elizabeths project sent to her from Senator Tom Carper (D-DE), chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, that said, "consolidating the Department at St. Elizabeths will improve DHS's ability to carry out its mission," and "finishing the consolidated DHS headquarters makes good fiscal sense, saving as much as a billion dollars over the next 30 years." The Senate report recommended that Congress fully fund the President's fiscal year 2015 budget request, and the Senate Appropriations Committee-approved fiscal year 2015 GSA appropriations fully funded the project.

Earlier this month, Norton participated in a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the DHS consolidation at St. Elizabeths. The GAO's report criticized some DHS and GSA planning and procurement practices at St. Elizabeths, but did not say that consolidation should not be completed. Rather, GAO said that Congress should consider requiring DHS and GSA to revise their headquarters plan in advance of funding, and GSA testified that it is updating its Master Plan to be included in its fiscal year 2016 budget request.

The first building, the Coast Guard headquarters, was completed on time and on budget because Norton was able to get almost $1.4 billion for that building at one time as a part of stimulus funding. Since then, however, annual appropriations have failed to provide the amounts needed to complete the complex on time, leading to steeply increased construction costs. As a result, the project is not expected to be completed until 2026.