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| Ford House Office Building | |
|---|---|
 Ford House Office Building in 2008 | |
  Location withinWashington, D.C. | |
| Former names | General Federal Office Building |
| General information | |
| Status | Completed |
| Location | United States Capitol Complex,Washington, D.C., United States |
| Coordinates | 38°53′4.2″N77°0′51.84″W / 38.884500°N 77.0144000°W /38.884500; -77.0144000 |
| Current tenants | United States House of Representatives Congressional Budget Office Architect of the Capitol |
| Completed | 1939; 86 years ago (1939) |
| Opened | 1975; 50 years ago (1975) (under AOC jurisdiction) |
| Owner | Architect of the Capitol |
| Technical details | |
| Floor area | 585,532 square feet (54,397.7 m2) |
| Grounds | 594,966 square feet (55,274.2 m2) |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Office of the Supervising Architect |
TheFord House Office Building is one of the five office buildings containingU.S. House of Representatives staff inWashington, D.C., onCapitol Hill.
The Ford House Office Building is the only House Office Building that is not connected underground to either one of the other office buildings or to theCapitol itself, and the only House Office Building that does not contain offices ofmembers of Congress. Instead, it primarily housescommittee staff and other offices, including theArchitect of the Capitol, theCongressional Budget Office, and theCommission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Prior to the construction of the current Ford House Office Building, the site was the home to the Bell School of the public schools system ofWashington, D.C. /District of Columbia government and the Zion Wesley Chapel. Construction of the building began in 1939 as part of 32nd PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt'sNew Deal programs, theWorks Progress Administration (W.P.A.). It was designed by architects and engineers in theOffice of the Supervising Architect of the old Public Buildings Administration underLouis A. Simon. The building originally housed theUnited States Census Bureau (of theU.S. Department of Commerce) from 1940 to 1942. Over the years, it was used by theFederal Bureau of Investigation to house its Latent Print Unit. Thousands offingerprint records were housed in the building, requiring manual search techniques to find a match. The unit was one of the first to move to the FBI's new main headquarters, theJ. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue upon its completion in 1974. Following the FBI's fingerprint section departure, the building was purchased by theArchitect of the Capitol's office and was renamed House Annex-2. In the late1980s, theDemocratic andRepublican parties were each permitted to rename a former House Annex building. The Republicans, then in the minority, chose to rename House Annex-2, as the Ford Building afterRepublican Party member, formerVice President and 38thPresident of the United States (served 1974-1977), and previouslyU.S. Representative (congressman) fromMichigan andHouse Minority LeaderGerald R. Ford (1913-2006), while theDemocrats chose to rename House Annex-1, as theO'Neill House Office Building after formerSpeaker of the HouseThomas ("Tip") O'Neill (1912-1994), ofMassachusetts. The building was officially renamed on September 10, 1990.[1]
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