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Housing Secretary Scott Turner has called the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building “the ugliest building in D.C.”
The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development announced plans Wednesday to move 2,700 workers into the National Science Foundation’s office building in Alexandria, Va.
The news comes amid widespread cuts to the NSF—and plans to cut its budget even more—and about a week after all remote NSF employees were required to return to in-person work at the agency’s headquarters or risk losing their jobs. It’s not yet clear where the 1,833 NSF employees who work in the building will relocate to, but General Services Administration Public Buildings Service Commissioner Michael Peters said at a news conference Wednesday that the government is aiming for minimal disruptions to those employees' lives, The Washington Post reported.
The government is planning to sell HUD’s current office building, the nearly 60-year-old Robert C. Weaver Federal Building in Washington, D.C., as part of the Trump administration’s wider efforts to curb spending by moving some federal workers to less expensive areas. According to Bloomberg, the building costs $56 million a year to operate and has an estimated $500 million in deferred maintenance.
Peters said the move aligns with the Trump administration’s vision “to drive efficiency” and “rightsize the federal real estate portfolio,” per The Washington Post.
In addition to cost concerns, the Trump administration doesn’t like the look of the agency’s concrete brutalist-style office building, either; Housing Secretary Scott Turner previously called the agency’s building “the ugliest building in D.C.”
According to a statement from the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3403, HUD’s plan for the NSF building includes creating an executive suite for the HUD secretary, constructing an executive dining room, designating reserved parking spaces for the secretary’s five cars, giving the secretary exclusive use of one elevator, creating a dedicated space for hosting the secretary’s multiple executive assistants and building a potential gym for the secretary and his family.
The union described the move as “absurd” and “dumbfounding.”
“At a time when they claim to be cutting government waste, it is unbelievable that government funding is being redirected to build a palace-like office for the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development,” the statement read. “This callous disregard for taxpayer dollars and NSF employees comes after the Administration already cut NSF’s budget, staff and science grants and forced NSF employees back into the office.”
