Exclusive: Noem spends $33.7 million to demolish historic buildings at DHS headquarters

The "emergency" demolition of historic buildings at the Department of Homeland Security's St. Elizabeths campus in Washington, DC, will cost U.S. taxpayers at least $33.7 million – millions of dollars more than an independent government estimate suggested the work should cost, according to federal records reviewed by The Redoubt.

Last year, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem issued a memo declaring that more than a dozen buildings on the site of her department's new headquarters posed an immediate "risk to life and property." Noem, in her Dec. 19 missive, asserted that the buildings could "provide a tactical advantage for carrying out small arms or active shooter scenarios."

News of the planned demolition, first reported by The Washington Post, drew criticism from historical preservationists. The St. Elizabeths campus, which has undergone more than a decade of development to transform it into a home for DHS, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, having been the site of a 19th-century asylum. An August 2025 review found that the buildings targeted for demolition were suitable for "future adaptive reuse," the Post reported.

But less than two weeks after Noem's memo was issued, federal records show that a no-bid contract was awarded to Clark Construction Group LLC, the same firm that has been chosen to construct President Donald Trump's White House ballroom. The company is a major federal contractor that regularly performs hundreds of millions of dollars worth of work annually for the government, and was previously awarded a contract by the Biden administration to perform work at the St. Elizabeths site.

Federal records show that Clark Construction Group LLC was awarded $33,655,499 on Jan. 2, 2026, for the "demolition of 17 structurally and security-compromised buildings" at DHS headquarters. In a document justifying the use of a no-bid contract, the U.S. General Services Administration, which manages federal properties, pointed to the company's ongoing work at the site and the fact that it already had construction permits "and demonstrated experience working under St. Elizabeths specific security, environmental, and historic preservation constraints."

"For these reasons," the document states, "Clark is the only contractor that can satisfy the Government's minimum needs within the required timeframe." An open bidding process, it says, would have delayed demolition by "weeks or months."

But the same document also indicates that this work is being performed at a premium. An "Independent Government Estimate" for the demolition work, cited by GSA, found that it should cost between"$23 - $30 million dollars." The actual cost is more than 12 percent higher than the high-end estimate, and 46 percent higher than the low-end.

GSA did not respond to a request for comment.

In mid-February, the Washington-based publication Migrant Insider reported that the demolition work at St. Elizabeths was raising health concerns among DHS staff, particularly with regard to asbestos, a known carcinogen. While members of the construction crew are wearing respirators and protective suits, the outlet reported that staff in nearby buildings have received nothing.

“There’s this attitude that because this is a high‑security campus, they can do what they want and we’ll just deal with it,” one DHS official told the outlet. “But we’re talking about cancer‑causing dust in a federal workplace. People are scared, and they should be.”

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