Vision Takes Shape For Bethesda Intelligence Community Campus

Thursday evening, officials with the Army Corps of Engineers are set to detail design elements and a construction timeline for the Intelligence Community Campus being developed on Bethesda's Sangamore Road.

The federal facility is the former site of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. NGIA employees were transferred in to Virginia in 2011 as a part of the federally mandated Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process.

About 3,000 intelligence workers —about the same number of employees that worked at NGIA—are expected to work at the campus, which is being developed by the Army Corps and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

According to the Army Corps of Engineers project website:

The redevelopment is necessary because: 1) there is a shortage of secured administrative building space in the Washington National Capital area; 2) a shared intelligence community campus supports congressional desires for a collaborative community environment and the consolidation of an intelligence community facility strategy; and 3) it supports the reuse of existing government facilities.

The re-development plan calls for removing one of the site's four buildings and combining the remaining three buildings into one facility, according to the site.

Original designs for the who raised concerns about the massing of a parking structure, tree-cutting, traffic, and potential impacts on Potomac River views.

Neighbors were pleased after viewing the new concept in November, Bethesda Now reported, saying the building was better integrated into the wooded setting -- the site borders National Park Service property -- and that the parking structure was well-landscaped.

The updated site renderings (attached) that will be presented Thursday haven't changed since the November meeting, according to Ashley Williams of the Army Corps of Engineers. However, officials will outline "more design specifics and path forward for construction," Williams wrote in an e-mail to Patch.

The meeting is set for 7 p.m. Thursday at the Washington Waldorf School.