DHS Headquarters to be most expensive federal building ever

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  • rambone

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    'Merica
    WASHINGTON, DC -- Phase I of the most expensive federal building project is complete; the development of a headquarters for the freedom-stomping Department of Homeland Security.

    The extravagant project includes the renovation of a former mental hospital, St. Elizabeth's, into an state of the art facility where unconstitutional federal agencies can plan their assaults on the constitution.

    Eventually 20 agencies controlled under the umbrella of DHS will be housed in the campus; around 14,000 bureaucrats total. The first phase has allowed the Coast Guard to move in.

    The building is dug into the side of a hillside, terraced, and has turf on the rooftops.

    Scheduled to finish in fiscal 2026, the St. Elizabeths redevelopment of the 176-acre west campus and 8 to 10 acres on the east campus, owned by the city, will cost about $4.5 billion total.

    This is the biggest federal building project in D.C. since the construction of the Pentagon ($83M between 1941-1943). It also dwarfs the cost of the NSA spy center being built in Utah to store troves of information on every American.

    Coast Guard's striking new HQ set to open its doors

    The new U.S. Coast Guard HQ: A sneak peek - Washington Business Journal

     

    mainjet

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    Just the other day I read in the paper about a kid that was injured on a fair ride. It mentioned in article that the Indiana Department of Homeland Security is in charge of inspecting carnival and fair rides. I was saying to my wife that that just sounds scary what this department is becoming and all that they are in charge of. Imagine 20 years down the road what that agency is going to look like.

    Now I see their new digs and it just confirms where the whole thing is heading. Kind of scary for this great nation.
     

    jedi

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    Just the other day I read in the paper about a kid that was injured on a fair ride. It mentioned in article that the Indiana Department of Homeland Security is in charge of inspecting carnival and fair rides. I was saying to my wife that that just sounds scary what this department is becoming and all that they are in charge of. Imagine 20 years down the road what that agency is going to look like.

    Now I see their new digs and it just confirms where the whole thing is heading. Kind of scary for this great nation.

    :facepalm:

    Indiana Department of Homeland Security IS NOT the same thing and Department of Homeland Security.
    IDHS is a state agency for the State of Indiana.
    DHS is a federal agency of the United States of America.

    IDHS may or may not be JBTs as I don't know enough about what they do.
    DHS is the mecca of all federal JBTs.
     

    mainjet

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    :facepalm:

    Indiana Department of Homeland Security IS NOT the same thing and Department of Homeland Security.
    IDHS is a state agency for the State of Indiana.
    DHS is a federal agency of the United States of America.

    IDHS may or may not be JBTs as I don't know enough about what they do.
    DHS is the mecca of all federal JBTs.

    :bowdown:
     

    dwh79

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    I worked on that job. It is a neat site from a historical perspective. They had armed guards at the construction entrances and you had to be badged but some of the workers were robbed at gun point not 200' from one of the guard shacks. It is in a really nasty part of town.
     

    Jerchap2

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    the new ministry of truth? or love? or ????
    which 1 will it be.

    The analogy is solid, and insightful. Ministry of Truth or Love would certainly fit, or maybe the Ministry of Security. I also expect a Ministry of Hope at some point.

    Have you been to Washington, DC and the surrounding burbs recently? I have. The construction that has gone on there in the last several years is amazing. Billions that we don't have spent by politicians on glass and chrome and marble monuments to themselves. Fortresses full of nameless, faceless, un-elected bureaucrats that are bent on taking away our liberties and controlling us. And it just keeps growing. That is what those inside the beltway see -- high wages, lots of growth and construction. They do not see beyond their myopic micro-environment. That is the reality they live in. It reminds me of the old adage that a fish does not know that it is wet. This is exactly what we fought a war against -- an out-of-touch, arrogant, highly-centralized Leviathan that does not know or respect the needs and wishes of the average citizen.

    OK, done venting, for not. Down off my :soapbox:
     

    BigMatt

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    I worked on that job. It is a neat site from a historical perspective. They had armed guards at the construction entrances and you had to be badged but some of the workers were robbed at gun point not 200' from one of the guard shacks. It is in a really nasty part of town.

    I must work in a nasty part of town too. I am robbed every payday. Except the thief that robs me just takes it out of my check and gives it to other people.
     

    rambone

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    The whole project is a disaster. $1 Billion over budget, exacerbated by battling with the D.C. historical preservationists. The utilities were left on for decades The building is rotten from having steam heat pumped through it while vacant. Somebody "forgot" to turn off the utilities. They are rehabbing a rotten shell, at any cost.


    Homeland Security's Future Home: A Former Mental Hospital - Businessweek
    There are holes in the floors. The ceilings are collapsing in some areas. Mills says St. Elizabeths moved patients out of the building in the 1960s, but somebody forgot to turn off the heat. “The steam was left on for years and years and years and years,” Mills laments. “The building literally rotted from the inside. The floors collapsed on each other.”

    Michael Chertoff, the secretary at the time, couldn’t wait to get everybody together at St. Elizabeths. “Maybe it doesn’t seem like a big deal,” he says, “but the reality is, if people come to a single building and they see a lot of mingling together in the cafeteria and mingling in the gym and people coming in and out of each other’s offices, it reinforces the idea of a single department.”


    BBW31_DHS_130724_MapWeb_605x260.jpg

    “They started planning this thing in 2005, and now it’s projected to be completed in 2026,” says Rep. Jeff Duncan. “That’s 21 years. The estimated cost is now $4.5 billion. That’s $1 billion more than their original estimate.”

    Duncan can’t get over what he describes as the high-end materials used in the common area outside the Coast Guard’s headquarters. “They’ve got the hardest wood and most expensive wood known to man out there,” he says. “Couldn’t they have gotten some of this composite deck material? It would have been a lot less money, and it doesn’t rot.”


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