A Sensitive Complex Housing a CIA Facility Was on GSA's List of US Properties for Sale

WIRED

06-03-2025

Photograph:A now-deleted list containing hundreds of United States government properties that the General Services Administration (GSA) plans to sell includes most of a sprawling, highly sensitive federal complex in Springfield, Virginia that also houses a secretive Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) facility, WIRED has learned.
The GSA's effort to sell hundreds of US government properties is part of a blunt reshaping of the federal government and its workforce led by Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Staffed in part by young engineers with no prior experience in government, DOGE's efforts have resulted in mass reductions in force, the effective shuttering of entirely independent agencies, and a flurry of lawsuits that seek to mitigate DOGE's razing of the government over the past six weeks.
The GSA published the list on Tuesday and pulled it down the next day. Before the full list of 443 properties was removed, more than 120 properties had already been quietly scrubbed, including 14 buildings that did not appear to be listed in the Inventory of Owned and Leased Properties (IOLP), a comprehensive public database of GSA holdings.
Most of these properties, aside from one identified only as 'Building A, 6810,' were labeled as either 'Butler' or 'Franconia.' According to public records, all of them are part of a large federal facility known as the Parr-Franconia Warehouse Complex, or the GSA Warehouse, which sits, fenced in by chainlink topped with barbed wire, at 6810 Loisdale Road in Springfield.
Most of the buildings in the complex, which dates back to the early 1950s and is dominated by a 1,005,602 square-foot warehouse long used as a government supply depot, are believed to be used by various government agencies for mundane purposes. Right in the middle of the complex, though, next to the warehouse and catty-corner to what's listed as Transportation Security Administration (TSA) headquarters, is a U-shaped building long notorious for its alleged ties to the CIA.
'Obviously, someone did no research about the long and well-documented history of this property,' says Jeff McKay, chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and a longtime advocate of redeveloping the complex, which is near a Metro station and sits in a prosperous area. 'Normally a site like this wouldn't be outed, so to speak, but everyone knows it's here except, apparently, the people who put this list together.'
The CIA's use of the building located at 6801 Springfield Center Dr., not all of which can necessarily be observed from street level, was first reported in 2012 by the Washington Business Journal, which in an article around the same time called the CIA's presence in the area 'perhaps the worst-kept secret in Springfield.' The most specific description of its purpose, as the publication noted, can be found in the 2011 spy agency-focused nonfiction book Fallout: The True Story of the CIA's Secret War on Nuclear Trafficking by Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz, who write, while describing a clandestine operation, that 'There were two pick-and-lock specialists from the agency's secret facility in Springfield, Virginia. In a warehouse-like building there, the CIA trains a cadre of technical officers to bug offices, break into houses, and penetrate computer systems.' (Whether it is currently used for these purposes is unknown.)
According to the Journal's reporting, Fairfax County leaders like McKay were frustrated because plans to redevelop the complex ran up against the existence of this facility.
'The entire challenge with redevelopment has been this entity,' McKay tells WIRED. 'This idea that you can sell everything around it and it will be OK runs counter to all the intelligence information we've been given over the past couple of decades. Without divulging the specific details of the activities, the government has been very clear about the sensitivity of the property.'
Even a widely supported plan to relocate FBI headquarters to Springfield foundered due in part to the CIA presence. While the FBI would not have raised security concerns, its relocation to the site would have raised logistical ones. Some government agencies, says McKay, said redevelopment was impossible; others said the secret facility would have to be relocated at the expense of the incoming tenant, making it far more expensive than other potential sites.
Since Tuesday, GSA sources have been wondering about the possible inclusion of CIA buildings on the list that was posted and then deleted. One source with knowledge of CIA operations, when asked about concerns that the GSA may have listed at least one of the agency's facilities as being for sale, immediately acknowledged 'the Springfield building.' (The building itself, which in past reporting has been described as being held by a private owner, does not appear to have been listed for sale, but due to its sensitivity, selling the buildings around it would raise much the same concerns.)
'There have been rumors swirling that some of the buildings identified house classified CIA space,' says one source at GSA, adding, 'the release of 'non-core properties' was especially surprising, as this nebulous language has not been historically used at [GSA].'
As the Washington Business Journal reported in 2012, a real estate appraisal in the late 1990s listed the CIA as one of the complex's tenants, indicating its presence there extends back at least three decades. It is nonetheless possible that the GSA does not know, at least officially, that the CIA has operated within the Springfield warehouse complex, a source at GSA tells WIRED. 'In general, we have agencies that perform many critical law enforcement and national security functions,' they say. 'We are not always aware of what type of operations are being conducted within tenant spaces. We build out operations to their specs and ensure their spaces are up to code. In my own personal experience, there are spaces in our buildings that not everyone knows about. Not necessarily CIA specifically.'
'I think it just shows you how completely unorganized this birdshot of a list is,' says McKay.
The CIA declined to comment. The GSA did not respond to WIRED's request for comment. On Wednesday, the GSA issued a press statement acknowledging the feedback the agency had received and asserting that inclusion on the originally published list did not mean a building would be up for sale immediately. 'We anticipate the list will be republished in the near future after we evaluate this initial input,' the statement read, 'and determine how we can make it easier for stakeholders to understand the nuances of the assets listed.'
'I am not saying it's CIA or not,' a former intelligence analyst who worked at Langley for more than a decade tells WIRED. 'But it's reckless that this information is out there at all. It speaks to the fact that these guys have no interest in even understanding government operations.'
Matt Giles contributed reporting.