Mark Center main building seen from the interstate

The Mark Center Building is a United States military installation and office building in

Alexandria, Virginia Alexandria is an independent city (United States), independent city in Northern Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of Washington, D.C., D.C. The city's population of 159,467 at the 2020 ...

. It is operated by the Washington Headquarters Services (WHS) of the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and superv ...

(DoD) and provides office space for several other DoD agencies. The name of the site refers to the "Mark Center" property development, which is located at the intersection of Seminary Road and Beauregard Street at the Interstate 395 interchange. Sixteen acres of the site were sold to the federal government and are administratively considered part of

Fort Belvoir Fort Belvoir ( ) is a United States Army installation and a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. It was developed on the site of the former Belvoir (plantation), Belvoir plantation, seat of the prominent Lord ...

. It is the tallest building constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers.

History

The site was selected in September 2008 as a result of the 2005 round of

Base Realignment and Closure Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) was a process by a Federal government of the United States, United States federal government commission to increase the efficiency of the United States Department of Defense by coordinating the realignment and ...

s (BRAC), and is also referred to as BRAC-133. The 2005 BRAC process mandated a move of many DoD offices from leased office space to secure sites that could meet DoD's high anti-terrorism security standards. Federal employees began moving to the center in August 2011, with the move scheduled to be complete by January 2013. The project has been controversial in the region because of potential traffic impacts: many of the approximately 6,500 employees who will be relocated to the site were formerly located in Metro-accessible locations such as

Crystal City, Virginia Crystal City is an urban neighborhood in the southeastern corner of Arlington County, Virginia, approximately south of Downtown (Washington, D.C.), Downtown Washington, D.C. Due to its extensive integration of office buildings and residential h ...

, and office buildings in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, itself, but must commute by car or bus to the new site via a highway that already handled 200,000 vehicles per day.

References

Buildings and structures in Alexandria, Virginia Government buildings completed in 2012 {{coord, 38.8303, N, 77.1163, W, display=title