The ongoing relocation of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) employees to a newly constructed building in Alexandria, Virginia has raised concerns over the site’s safety. The structure sits next to a major interstate highway with a large volume of traffic and has two towers--15 and 17 stories high.
That densely populated area of Alexandria is known as Mark Center and was chosen for the DoD facility because of its closeness to the Pentagon under the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) program. The program’s purpose is to reduce the number of military bases in the United States and move defense employees into consolidated work locations. When fully occupied in 2012, the Alexandria building will house 6,400 employees.
Those employees coming to the Mark Center office complex are with the Defense Department’s Washington Headquarters Service, and work in acquisition and accounting among their duties for the Pentagon. Many had worked in other locations in the Washington area and were moved to the new site because it was considered more secure.
Initial concern over traffic tie ups for local commuters
Almost as soon as the new building was announced, a number of area officials decried its location over the expected traffic bottlenecks along adjoining Interstate-395 as well as on local roads and the impact on public services (including the nearby Alexandria Hospital), surrounding businesses, and neighborhoods. The governor of Virginia and the local member of Congress both asked DoD to delay the move for at least one year.
“Rep. James P. Moran, Virginia Democrat, has long opposed the move to the Mark Center, mostly because of the expected impact on traffic as workers begin to trickle into the site. He secured language in the 2012 House defense authorization bill allowing Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to delay for up to a year personnel moving into some BRAC sites, and he sponsored an amendment that caps the parking spaces to be used at the site at 1,000 until ramp modifications and intersection improvements are completed,” David Sherfinski noted in “Report on Mark Center vulnerability ‘frightening’,” in the September 7, 2011 Washington Times.
While declining to postpone the move, the Pentagon took steps to try to mitigate the amount of vehicles coming into the complex through varying work hours, adding more bus service from the nearest subway station three miles away at the Pentagon, and having a more gradual number of employees move in over time.
Traffic tie-ups have not proved to be a serious problem so far but more overriding issues have emerged regarding the building being a potential attack target as a Pentagon annex that can be approached from multiple directions.
Building security weaknesses noted in Corps of Engineers document
Earlier in 2011, a document was leaked on the internet citing security weaknesses of the structure, including the prospect of a truck bomb being used to detonate a building explosion similar to the deadly one launched in Oklahoma City in April 1995.
“In April, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) wrote a letter to [then] Defense Secretary Robert Gates questioning the logic of placing the building next to I-395. ‘Military explosive experts have told POGO that an eighteen-wheeler full of ammonium nitrate or other military grade explosive could easily be detonated in close proximity to the proposed new building, killing hundreds to thousands of DoD and contractor support employees’,” Matthew Harwood said in “Pentagon Assures Tenants That Mark Center Is Safe and Sound” in Security Management, September 28, 2011.
The 424-page Army Corps of Engineers document, which was subsequently removed from the Corps’ website and from search engines, discussed how an explosive device could be used to destroy or severely damage the facility. “Reuters news service, which first discovered the document online, reported that Mark Center was designed to withstand the blast from 220 pounds of TNT-like material if it’s detonated outside the Mark Center’s security perimeter, or 55 pounds if the perimeter is breached,” Ben Giles wrote April 20, 2011 in “Army accidentally reveals Mark Center’s bomb security” in the Washington Examiner. “That limit is a fraction of the size of the bombs used in attacks against the World Trade Center in 1993 and an Oklahoma City office building in 1995.”
A report also appearing on Time magazine’s website said the publication had received information showing the Mark Center’s vulnerability through hypothetical studies conducted to assess the kind of damage a bomb blast could inflict--in relation to Oklahoma City and terrorist attacks in Beirut in 1993, Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, and Nairobi, Kenya in 1998.
Others have raised the fear the large DoD multi-story office glass towers with an atrium design could be prone to an attack by a jetliner as well. But contrary views have been voiced on the site’s safety owing in part to the two parking garages at the structure. Some familiar with the area maintain a truck bomb parked on the shoulder of I-395 would not bring down the building as the concrete parking facility shields it.
Pentagon insists site built with security precautions
A letter from Steven Calvery, director of the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, and William E. Brazis, director of the Washington Headquarters Services, to tenants already in Mark Center stated that the building is “one of the safest and most structurally-advanced” offices in the entire D.C. region.
The letter added it was designed with security considerations and meets all related DoD anti-terrorism standards. “The facility’s controlled perimeter, blast resistance, standoff distances, progressive collapse resistance, and other protective measures work as an integrated system to assure protection of occupants against threats.”
In addition, access to the facility is being controlled through secure vehicle check-in points, a visible fence, gate arms, truck barriers, pedestrian turnstiles that require a Common Access Card for authorized personnel access, remote inspection and delivery areas, and around the clock protection by Pentagon police officers, Alexandria police, and contract security officers.
Pentagon officials also have pointed to their original justification for choosing the Mark Center site by noting the increased work space it affords, and the minimized relocation disruption for local DoD employees regarding commute time and not having to change residences.
Sources:
- David Sherfinski, “Report on Mark Center vulnerability ‘frightening’,” Washington Times, September 7, 2011
- Liz Essley, “Report: Mark Center vulnerable to attack, Washington Examiner, September 7, 2011
- Matthew Harwood, “Pentagon Assures Tenants That Mark Center Is Safe and Sound,” Security Management, September 28, 2011
- Mark Benjamin, “Soft Target: At the Pentagon’s New Office Complex, Disturbing Questions About Security,” Time, September 6, 2011
- Ben Giles, “Army accidentally reveals Mark Center’s bomb security, Washington Examiner, April 20, 2011
John Seidenberg - John Seidenberg has worked on newspapers, newsletters, radio news, and produced specialized news publications as well as freelance ...
