WHS lease extended
By James Cullum
While the likelihood diminishes that the Army will meet its Sept. 15, 2011, deadline for moving thousands of federal workers into new offices in Northern Virginia, one agency set to move has renewed its lease in Crystal City through 2013.
Washington Headquarters Services, which will move 6,200 federal employees to an as-yet-to-be-determined location, will stay in Crystal City until office space is finished.
“It is true that the lease was extended,” said WHS spokeswoman Kawanza Yates, who did not elaborate further.
For months, the Army has been conducting a selection process for three local properties to determine the final location of WHS. Two locations in contention are in the City of Alexandria and the third is the General Services Administration warehouse site in Springfield.
The selection process was supposed to be completed earlier this year but was pushed back to June and then recently moved again to Sept. 5.
The date change “includes further evaluation of existing Fort Belvoir sites beyond what had been initially been contemplated as a part of the site selection process,” said Army spokesman Dave Foster.
The GSA site is less than a mile from a Metro station and near the Springfield Interchange, offering easy connections to Interstates 95, 495 and 395.
“The process is taking time because of the substantial analysis that goes into site selection and relocation. The Army is working hard, but it's a massive project and the time frame which they have been given is inadequate,” said U.S. Rep. Jim Moran (D-8th).
Moran added that the 2011 deadline is arbitrary because no penalty awaits the Army if the move is not completed by then.
Despite the lease renewal, the Army will continue to work toward meeting the 2011 deadline unless Congress changes the base realignment law, said Foster.
That means that until ordered to do so, the Army would have to prepare temporary office space for WHS workers on Fort Belvoir – if the permanent offices were not finished and the law not changed by 2011.
“You can't put people in substandard working conditions,” said Lee District Supervisor Jeff McKay (D). “But am I upset if the deadline is pushed back? No way.”
The only reason the GSA site has not been chosen as the official location for WHS is because of the Defense Department's fear that construction could not be finished in time, said McKay, who recently participated in a meeting with Defense officials.
“Every time we push back the [selection] deadline, it makes it harder to make the [2011] deadline on any of the three sites,” said McKay, adding by the time the 2013 lease for the WHS properties in Crystal City expire, the GSA site could be ready to welcome all 6,200 employees.