Contract for New FBI Field Office Awarded by GSA

CINCINNATI—The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has awarded a lease-construction contract to Barry Real Estate Companies Inc. to develop a new Cincinnati field office for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  The $47.3 million development, to be built on a 6.26-acre site in Sycamore Township in northeast Cincinnati, is expected to enter construction this fall and be ready for occupancy in February 2011.

GSA Regional Commissioner J. David Hood said the contract calls for the Barry Companies to build a field office facility designed to FBI requirements and lease it to the federal government on a long-term basis.  As the developer, Barry will purchase the site and provide design and construction services. 

“This lease-construction approach benefits the FBI and the community as well,” said Hood. “It gives the FBI much-needed space in a new facility virtually custom-built for the FBI. And being privately owned instead of government-owned, the development becomes a new source of local property tax revenue.”

FBI Cincinnati Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Keith L. Bennett noted that the FBI long ago outgrew its space in the Peck Federal Building in downtown Cincinnati because of the addition of task force personnel working in such missions as counter-terrorism and mortgage fraud investigations.  SAC Bennett added, "The FBI personnel in Cincinnati eagerly await the move to our new home.  We are excited to have a facility which will allow us to better serve the people of Southern Ohio and look forward to working with GSA and the developer throughout the construction process."

Charles Moody, Senior Vice President, Director of the Barry Companies, said the project will have a favorable impact on the local economy in several ways. He estimates that the value of goods, services and construction materials from local subcontractors and suppliers may exceed $25 million. During the course of the development, the project will produce 250 jobs, including on-site installations, off-site fabrication, and delivery.

As “green construction” goals, Moody anticipates that 10 to 20 percent of materials used will contain recycled content and 10 percent of construction materials will be acquired from regional manufacturers. 

The new field office will be a complex of three structures—a four-story office building with 90,000 rentable square feet of space, a two-story enclosed garage with 145 parking spaces, and a one-story building for automotive repairs and other maintenance. Space in each of the structures can be increased by 35 percent if needed for future expansion.

GSA, the federal government’s real estate manager, conducted the solicitation and evaluation of of development proposals jointly with the FBI. GSA will lease the facility from Barry for the FBI. The total annual rent during the 20-year contract is $79.4 million.

The FBI’s current field office is in downtown Cincinnati in the John Weld Peck Federal Building, where it occupies 65,000 square feet of space. The FBI has had offices there since the 1960s.

The site of the new field office in Sycamore Township, Hamilton County is near the Montgomery Road exit on Interstate 71, a 12- to 15-minute drive from downtown.

Sycamore Township will install a new access road serving the FBI facility and nearby development sites. Tom Weidman, President of the Township Board of Trustees, said the new road and other work will improve access to and from I-71 and divert traffic from residential areas.

Barry is a real estate development organization based in Atlanta. Its development team for the Cincinnati field office includes Minneapolis-based Hammel, Green and Abrahamson architectural firm and general contractor Skanska USA Building Inc., Atlanta. The new FBI field office here is one of four federal projects Barry has underway across the nation.