Sangamore Federal Facility Will Shift to Intelligence Community Campus

The Montgomery County Planning Board last week reviewed the master plan for the Sangamore Road federal facility formerly known as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

The 30-acre site will become the “Intelligence Community Campus-Bethesda,” operated by the Defense Intelligence Agency, following the move of NGIA employees to Virginia as a part of the federally mandated Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process.

According to the results of a federal environmental impact study on the site, the move to develop the intelligence community campus “supports Congressional desires for a collaborative community environment and the consolidation of an intelligence community facility strategy.”

The Intelligence Community is comprised of 17 intelligence-gathering agencies and organizations.

About 3,000 federal employees—about the same number of employees that worked at NGIA—are expected to work at the campus, according to M-NCPPC. Upgrades at the facility will include:

• Consolidating buildings and adding nearly 150,000 square feet of building space.
• Adding a parking structure and removing surface parking, bumping up the number of on-site spaces from 1800 to 2200.
• Adding queuing space onsite for 40 cars to remove backups onto Sangamore Road, described as a “significant positive impact on the community” by planning staff.
• Security upgrades.

Construction on the south portion of the campus is expected to begin in mid-2012.