WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- U.S. Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell is moving his headquarters again -- the second such relocation since the post was created in 2005.
About 1,000 of the director's 1,500 or so staff, currently scattered across a series of locations throughout the region, will be moving next year into a new building at Liberty Crossing near Tyson's Corner in Mclean, Va., McConnell spokesman Ross Feinstein told United Press International.
"It is scheduled for the April-June 2008 time frame," said Feinstein.
He said the two main elements to move to the new location would be staff at the current headquarters, on two floors of the Defense Intelligence Agency's new building at Bolling Air Force Base in southwest Washington, and in offices at the CIA campus in Langley, Va., where facilities and security staff among others are based.
McConnell's office, called the ODNI by insiders, was based at the New Executive Office Building, across the street from the White House, when it was first created, but moved to Bolling last year after it grew too large to fit in the very limited space available there. Officials made it clear at the time that the location would be temporary, because legislation prohibited the director from being based at the headquarters of any single intelligence agency, to scrupulously preserve the appearance of neutrality between them all.
Plans for the latest move, first reported by the Baltimore Sun this week, were announced to the workforce Nov. 7 in a message from LTG Ronald Burgess, McConnell's director of intelligence staff.
"The consolidation of many ODNI elements at Liberty Crossing is a benefit in that it allows us to better integrate our efforts," reads a portion of the message sent to UPI by Feinstein. "It also benefits CIA and DIA, whose space we have been occupying for the past few years; these agencies will realize efficiencies when they are able to occupy their newly vacated space."
Feinstein said many stand-alone elements of the director's office, like the program manager for information-sharing, the National Counter-Intelligence Executive and the National Intelligence Council, would remain in their current locations because that made sense for them.
But he said there would be other elements that would not fit in the new building. "The ODNI is doing a review of office space across the intelligence community," he said, using the term of art for the sprawling collection of U.S. agencies McConnell manages. "We need to see where there's room for rationalization."
Feinstein said Burgess had taken questions from staff at a town hall meeting last week and there would be more consultation about the move, with flexible work schedules and shuttle buses to mass transit stations on offer to soothe concerns from workers hit by a longer commute.
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Shaun Waterman, UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
