New DHS Headquarters Gets $288M In Inflation Reduction Act Funds
The final pieces of the Department of Homeland Security’s headquarters at D.C.'s St. Elizabeths West campus are coming together with new funding from the Inflation Reduction Act.
President Joe Biden's administration announced Thursday it is allotting nearly $288M of IRA funds to three of the final six projects left at the headquarters campus, which is planned to span 4.1M SF over 176 acres.
The money will be used to fund new headquarters facilities for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, both of which are under the DHS umbrella, and it will go toward constructing a garage and gatehouse on the property.
The allocation also advances sustainability requirements for sourcing construction materials. The projects will prioritize sourcing low-embodied carbon concrete, steel and asphalt, and the government plans to invest in sustainable technologies like solar panels, indoor air quality sensors and a water-smart irrigation system, according to the release.
As a result, the General Services Administration said it expects to help avoid thousands of metric tons of embodied carbon emissions.
“With this project, we’re modeling a comprehensive approach to sustainability in the federal footprint—using low-embodied carbon materials, new technologies, and a strong partnership on grid decarbonization with the local utility company,” GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan said in the release.
Congress had allocated $2.8B to the headquarters as of last June, when the Government Accountability Office found it needed more funding. The GSA asked for $193.4M in its fiscal year 2024 budget for the Intelligence and Analysis Headquarters, construction on a below-grade parking structure and historic preservation.
Construction on the CISA and ICE headquarters is set to begin in 2024, according to the release. Those offices will support 6,500 DHS employees, while the overall campus is planned to house 12,000 at completion.
The DHS campus sits across Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue from the St. Elizabeths East campus, where the D.C. government has been moving forward with a series of new mixed-use projects around the Entertainment and Sports Arena.
