WHITE OAK, Md. — A dozen years ago, the closing of the Naval Surface Warfare Center in White Oak, a suburb of Washington, was met with a mixture of concern and hope. What would happen to the 662-acre military compound? Would the thousands of naval workers whose jobs were being shifted be replaced? Would the sprawling federal property be privately developed, or left fallow?
In the great chess game of managing the government’s properties, the Food and Drug Administration has moved into the gap, with a large-scale consolidation of its previously scattered labs and offices. The $1.15 billion project — which includes 14 new buildings totaling 3.1 million square feet of labs and offices — is also expected to become the anchor of a new biotech hub just outside the Capital Beltway.
The move to White Oak, about six miles from downtown Silver Spring, Md., is part of a continuing effort by the General Services Administration, the agency that owns and leases property for federal offices, to make better use of its vast real estate portfolio. “From our perspective of asset management, it was kind of a no-brainer,” said Anthony E. Costa, the acting G.S.A. buildings commissioner. “The federal government had this large site. It made sense.”
Consolidating the F.D.A. and not paying rent to private landlords also made financial sense. For decades, the F.D.A. rented space at 27 separate buildings elsewhere in Montgomery County and operated under 49 different leases.
“Leasing, especially lab space, gets to be fairly expensive,” Mr. Costa said. “When you rely on the private sector to supply that type of space, you’re in a pretty precarious situation.” A 2004 G.S.A. study concluded that the government would save $10 million annually by moving the F.D.A. from its rented quarters to a new consolidated campus at White Oak.
The site at White Oak, named for the Maryland state tree, was an overgrown and wooded field when the federal government acquired it in 1944 as the new home for the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, which developed and tested ballistics, torpedoes, mines and other explosives. The facility later combined with another naval weapons testing base and was renamed the Naval Surface Weapons Center, and then, in 1987, the Naval Surface Warfare Center, to indicate its broader military mission.
Source: The New York Times