New Oklahoma City Federal Building Opens
A new Oklahoma City federal building with shatterproof glass, a steel-plated main entrance and concrete plugs outside opened on Monday, 8 1/2 years after the bombing that killed 168 people.
Two dozen employees of the Small Business Association settled into their new offices, the first tenants of the building, which is kitty-corner from the site where the Alfred P. Murrah Building once stood and a block from the memorial to the dead.
Eleven agencies are scheduled to move in over the next several months. Workers were still putting the finishing touches on the fountain and walkways.
SBA employee Cindi Anderson, a 39-year-old single mother, was nervous about the move until she toured the building and saw its security features.
“With everything going on in the world, it’s a little bit scary, but I’m more comfortable now,” she said.
Others were excited about getting their own private offices, a rarity in government service, said Dorothy Overal, district SBA director.
Her assistant, Jerry Reese, said it was important to rebuild after the bombing as a show of resolve: “If we didn’t do it, the terrorists win.”
The SBA had no offices in the Murrah Building, which was destroyed by a truck bomb driven by Timothy McVeigh on April 19, 1995. He was executed in 2001.
The three-story, horseshoe-shaped building was built at a cost of $33 million.
The main entrance is enclosed in three-quarter-inch-thick, floor-to-ceiling steel plates. The building is set back from the street, and its windows are specially treated so they will not shatter in an explosion. Waist-high concrete plugs are designed to prevent vehicles from getting too close.
Still, its proximity to the Murrah site prompted several employees of the Department of Housing and Urban Development to say they do not want to move into the building.
About half of HUD’s current 103 employees worked in the Murrah building. HUD lost 35 employees in the bombing and is the biggest agency making the move. HUD officials in Washington have said they are making special arrangements for employees who refuse to move into the building.
No law enforcement agencies will be based in the new building for fear this could make it a target.
The building is to be dedicated next May. No name for it has been announced.
Federal agencies have been scattered throughout Oklahoma City since the bombing. SBA employees had moved out of the nine-story Murrah building five months before the attack and had been using leased space until Monday.
Matthew Madison, district manager for the General Services Administration, said this is the first federal building, other than a courthouse, built in the United States in more than 15 years.
“It has the greatest possible technology enhancements available,” he said.
Other agencies moving in are the Food and Drug Administration, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, General Services Administration and offices for the Army and Marines.