Norton at DHS Headquarters Groundbreaking This Morning (9/9/09)

Norton at DHS Headquarters Ground Breaking Wednesday Morning

September 9, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will join Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, General Services Administration Administrator Paul Prouty, U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, Mayor Adrian Fenty, and Ward 8 City Councilman Marion Barry today, 10 a.m., on the St. Elizabeths Campus, 2700 Martin Luther King Ave., SE, for the long-awaited groundbreaking for the new Department of Homeland Security Headquarters complex, the most ambitious federal construction project since the building of the Pentagon.

Norton, who chairs the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management that will oversee the construction, secured more than $1 billion in federal funds for the complex. She also will announce jobs, small business development, and apprenticeship training to occur at the construction site, and a module building where apprenticeship training will be offered.Hiring will begin next month by contractors and subcontractors. The General Services Administration will conduct community outreach and report to Norton's subcommittee efforts to include District residents in the competition for construction jobs. A modular building where apprenticeship training and hiring will be offered will be set up next month. Fifteen to 20 jobs will be filled the first week in November, and by March, officials expect the first 100 individuals to be working at the site, but construction is expected to generate 38,000 jobs during construction. The site will then bring 14,000 federal jobs to the complex. "We are digging in for long-term growth for jobs for residents and a uniquely large boost to the D.C. economy for years to come," Norton said. "We will be building the headquarters complex for almost a decade. When the construction is done, we expect to see in Ward 8 as we have seen elsewhere - that where the federal government goes, businesses and services follow."

The first federal construction east of the Anacostia River is expected to stimulate the revitalization of Martin Luther King Avenue, the gateway to Anacostia. Although federal law prohibits hiring for federal jobs based on applicants' residency, Norton has worked with GSA to identify ways within the law to assure that contractors employ qualified District residents for the construction jobs that will open at the new DHS site. Already, 100 percent of the small business contracts have gone to minority businesses, and 40 percent to D.C. minority businesses, $5 million has been set aside for small businesses for the first construction. Federal construction has generated The Yard, a mixed-use development in Southwest. The DHS headquarters complex is expected to help revitalize the Martin Luther King Avenue commercial corridor and the residential neighborhoods nearby in the same way federal construction created downtown D.C., and is transforming M Street Southeast near the new Nationals Stadium, the Yard, a mixed-use development.