$100M Redevelopment of DEA Headquarters Wraps Up

DEA headquarters in Arlington, Va. Image courtesy of Judy Davis, Studio HDP

FD Stonewater, tasked with spearheading the phased redevelopment of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s 511,000-square-foot headquarters just outside Washington, D.C., in Arlington, Va., has completed the $100 million project on time and on budget.

FD Stonewater took on the modernization of the two-building Lincoln Place on behalf of owner CSHV Lincoln Place LLC, an entity of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System.

Located at 600-700 Army Navy Drive in the Pentagon City submarket, Lincoln Place opened in 1988 and has been home to the DEA for decades. In 2018, FD Stonewater represented CSHV in a 15-year lease renewal with the DEA in what was the largest lease transaction in Northern Virginia that year. With the government agency’s renewed commitment to Lincoln Place, CSHV agreed to transform the property into a best-in-class facility via an extensive capital investment program with FD Stonewater at the helm.

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The newly upgraded Lincoln Place, which can now accommodate an additional 400 employees, features secure office space, including 20,000 square feet of Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility space.

Other new additions to the property, which meets Federal Security Level IV requirements, include courtrooms as well as café and fitness center amenities. The centerpiece of the renovations, however, is the DEA Museum, a 12,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art, interactive exhibit space. FD Stonewater also took the opportunity to improve systems at both buildings during the capital upgrades process. SmithGroup served as architect-of-record on the project, while HITT Contracting was aboard as general contractor.

Par for the course

The Park Place project was part of FD Stonewater’s federal development and construction management platform, which involves the company’s supplying of services to property owners with federal government occupants. Earlier this year, FD Stonewater completed another large federal project, the renovation and restacking of the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Md. The 500,000-square-foot undertaking included the addition of new office space, support space, common areas and a conference center, in addition to upgrades to the fitness facility and cafeteria.

In recent years, FD Stonewater was also responsible for the interior renovation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s home in Atlanta, where the real estate development and services firm transformed a 118,000-square-foot space.