The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Thursday it will vacate its facility at 1320 Braddock Place in Alexandria as part of a sweeping reorganization that will relocate thousands of federal employees from the Washington region to five hub cities across the country.
The Alexandria facility houses the USDA Food and Nutrition Service, which administers critical federal nutrition assistance programs including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations. The relocation could affect operations for programs that serve millions of Americans, though officials emphasized essential services will continue uninterrupted.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the department plans to reduce its National Capital Region workforce from approximately 4,600 employees to no more than 2,000, citing cost savings and a desire to move operations closer to the farmers and ranchers the agency serves.
It remains unclear how many employees work at the Braddock Place facility. ALXnow has reached out to USDA for comment on the number of affected workers and the timeline for the Alexandria relocation.
“American agriculture feeds, clothes, and fuels this nation and the world, and it is long past time the Department better serve the great and patriotic farmers, ranchers, and producers we are mandated to support,” Rollins said in a statement.
The Braddock Place building will be returned to the General Services Administration along with USDA’s South Building in Washington and the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland. The department also will reassess its use of the Whitten Building, Yates Building and National Agricultural Library.
USDA cited the high cost of maintaining its Washington-area facilities, noting the South Building alone has $1.3 billion in deferred maintenance and operates well below capacity with fewer than 1,900 daily occupants in a building designed for more than 6,000 employees.
The five hub locations where USDA operations will relocate are Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis, Indiana; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City, Utah. The department said it selected these cities based on existing USDA employee concentrations and lower costs of living compared to the Washington region, which has a federal salary locality rate of 33.94%.
The reorganization comes after what USDA described as four years of unsustainable growth, with the workforce expanding 8% and salaries increasing 14.5% “without any tangible increase in service” to agricultural constituencies.
More than 15,000 employees have already elected voluntary retirement or deferred resignation under the department’s workforce reduction efforts.
Rollins emphasized that critical functions will continue uninterrupted, particularly National Security and Public Safety positions that handle forest fire response, food safety inspections and agricultural security. These 52 position classifications are exempt from federal hiring freezes, though employees may face relocation.
The secretary said senior leadership will provide offices with specific relocation information over the next month as part of what she called “the first phase of a multi-month process.”
