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 in the northern region of the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of downtown Washington, D.C. In 2020, the population was 159,467. ...

. 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 executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...

(DoD), and provides office space for several other DoD agencies. The name of the site refers to the "Mark Center" property development in which it 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, seat of the prominent Fairfax family for whom Fa ...

. 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) is a process by a United States federal government commission to increase United States Department of Defense efficiency by coordinating the realignment and closure of military installations following the en ...

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 Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to: Geography * Metro (city), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urban ...

-accessible locations such as

Crystal City, Virginia Crystal City is an urban neighborhood in the southeastern corner of Arlington County, Virginia, south of downtown Washington, D.C. Due to its extensive integration of office buildings and residential high-rise buildings using underground corrido ...

, and office buildings in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, 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