The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced on Wednesday that it was moving its headquarters out of Washington and into a building in Alexandria, Va., already occupied by the National Science Foundation, with no clear plan in place for the foundation’s employees.
It is the first major shift of a federal agency’s operations out of the capital under President Trump’s plans to relocate parts of the government. But once the housing agency moves in, the science foundation will need to move out. Union representatives for the foundation’s employees said that more than 1,833 people with the agency work in the building, and that they did not know where those employees would go.
Scott Turner, the housing secretary, told employees at the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building, the agency’s current headquarters just south of the National Mall, that the change would reinvigorate workers and save taxpayer dollars.
The current headquarters, which date to the mid-1960s, face more than $500 million in deferred maintenance and modernization needs, according to federal officials.
Michael Peters, the public buildings service commissioner at the General Services Administration, which oversees the federal real estate portfolio, said that federal officials were still arranging a timeline for moving science foundation staff out of the building.
“We’re going to work with N.S.F. to identify the best solution for them,” said Mr. Peters, who spoke at a news conference on Wednesday with Mr. Turner and Glenn Youngkin, the Republican governor of Virginia.
Mr. Turner said that his agency’s move to Alexandria signaled a commitment to the health and safety of employees, and that the current headquarters had unsafe working conditions. “The air quality is questionable, leaks are nearly unstoppable and the HVAC is almost unworkable, just to name a few examples in addition to the broken elevator banks that have been broken for years,” he said. “So it’s time for a change.”
The housing agency’s headquarters, Mr. Peters said, were “eye-opening.”
“Honestly, it was embarrassing, from a G.S.A. perspective, to say this is the quality of space we’re delivering you,” Mr. Peters told Mr. Turner during the news conference, describing a visit to the building.
Union representatives for the science foundation employees said the move would benefit Mr. Turner significantly.
“While Secretary Turner and his staff are busy enjoying private dining and a custom gym, N.S.F. employees are being displaced with no plan, no communication and no respect,” union representatives said in a statement. According to the union, the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3403, the new space would include “palatial” amenities for Mr. Turner, such as a new executive dining room.
During the news conference, Mr. Turner bristled at the suggestion that he would benefit from luxurious accommodations.
“This is about the HUD employees, to have a safe space, to have a nice place to work, to represent the people that we serve in America,” he said. “This is not about the secretary.”
The housing agency’s move would bring roughly 2,700 employees to Alexandria, Mr. Youngkin said, adding that he hoped the Trump administration would keep the science foundation in Virginia, at a different location.
The Trump administration said in April that it aimed to sell and relocate the housing department’s headquarters as part of a larger initiative to trim the federal government’s real estate portfolio.
In a crowded auditorium at the housing department’s headquarters on Wednesday morning, agency leaders played a video outlining the building’s maintenance problems, including frequent broken elevators, according to a person familiar with the presentation who was not authorized to speak publicly about it.
Mr. Turner told employees that the department’s headquarters were “falling to pieces,” and that a brick had fallen from the ceiling in his office and almost hit him, according to the person.
The Alexandria building is close to a subway station. The area is also home to other federal offices, including the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services application support center and the office of the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Madeleine Ngo covers U.S. economic policy and how it affects people across the country.
Eileen Sullivan is a Times reporter covering the changes to the federal work force under the Trump administration.
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