A wider dispute on fiscal policy has caught the Trump administration’s attention to the Washington Headquarters Federal Reserve renewal, as the costs increase, the project budget has increased by $ 600 million to almost $ 2.5 billion.
The Morrino S. Eccles building and the project of the Constitution of the Constitution of the 1951 Constitution is expected to be renewed and expanded the two Fed Neighborhood Buildings next to the National Shopping Center, including the necessary work to eliminate asbestos and to drive, improve security and replace the dated buildings systems, according to the FED. Expansions will provide space to consolidate employees working in other offices leased spaces in the two buildings that FED officials say they will save money in the long term. In addition to expanding the buildings, the project team is also building an underground parking structure.
The project is led by a joint company of Balfour Beatty and Gilbane Building Co. A representative of the joint company refused to comment.
The 276,000 -square -meter eccles building was originally completed in 1937 and has only undergone minors since then. Fed staff say that the building’s systems have reached the end of their life. The neighbor of the 1951 Constitution, also known as Federal Reserve Board-East Building or FRB-East, was originally completed in 1933 for the United States Public Health Service. The FED acquired the building of 126,388 square meters in 2018, as it began hiring to renew the Eccles building and modified its application to include the two buildings “to optimize coordination and gain efficiency benefits”, according to an audit report of 2021.
The two buildings are in the DC inventory of Historical Places and FRB-East also appears in the National Register of Historic Places.
“No one in office wants to make a significant renovation of a historic building during its term; very preferring to the successors, and this is a great example of why, only two historical buildings that needed a lot of work,” said Fed President Jerome Powell “but we decided to assume it because, when the administrative governor was before turning -I was president, I understood the evil that was not a serious renewal. Waterproof, so we assumed it. “
Concern of the project
President Donald Trump has repeatedly requested Powell to reduce interest rates and have been publicly cooled if he could be fired, while the Fed Chair has defended a waiting approach and goes before adjusting rates due to concern for inflation. In this context, Russell Vought, director of the Management and Budget Office of the White House, sent a letter to Powell earlier this month to consider the concern for the cost of the project and the articles included in the design such as “Gardens of Terrassa on the roof”, as well as “VIP dinners and lifts” and the use of marble.
“The President is extremely concerned about your federal reservation system management,” Vought wrote. “Instead of trying to fix the Fed’s fiscal ship, you have plowed with an ostentatious review of your Washington headquarters, DC.”
FED records show that your project budget has gone from $ 1.9 billion before 2020 to $ 2.5 billion. In the budget documents that went to the current controversy, the Fed staff attributed the increase in costs estimates to high supply prices for mechanical, electric and plumbing work.
On the FED website, officials also pointed out an increase in construction materials and labor costs, as they were originally estimates, unforeseen conditions such as more asbestos than expected, as well as design changes arising from “consultation with review agencies”.
Fed officials also addressed Vought design concerns, writing that the “garden terrace” in planning documents is actually the grass at the ground level at the top of the underground parking structure. No VIP or lifts are added, but they wrote, but sometimes lectures are used for meeting meetings and original lifts are being strengthened. The proposed water characteristics considered for the FRB-East property were eliminated from the plans, but the original sources in the Eccles building are being restored as part of the work. The marble of the original facades and the stone stone was preserved to reinstall -and a new marble was needed only when the original material was damaged.
During Powell’s testimony to the Senate Committee, he said that none of these articles were “really cost drivers.”
“We take our responsibility seriously as administrators of the money from the public,” he said.
