SECURITY IS PRIORITY AT NEW DRUG ENFORCEMENT BUILDING

Starting Nov. 1, the men and women who investigate illegal drug activity
from South Dakota to the Bootheel of Missouri will work out of a new
state-of-the-art headquarters near St. Louis Union Station.

The $23 million-plus building replaces the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration's 16-year-old digs in the UMB Bank Building on Forsyth
Boulevard in Clayton, giving the agency double the space and an environment
where security is much tighter.

At the new five-story, beige building, at 16th Street and Clark Avenue, the
DEA's 200 employees will have ample room for the diverse jobs of
interviewing informers, processing prisoners, analyzing evidence, storing
seized goods, gathering intelligence and training agents.

The St. Louis division of the DEA covers five complete states - Missouri,
Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota - plus Southern Illinois.

"The safety and security measures are so much better here than in Clayton,"
said Doug Biales, assistant special agent in charge. He personally monitored
the 5 1/2-year process of building a new office.

"For instance, in Clayton we've got a common elevator. So if we bring in a
prisoner, we've got to check the elevator to see who else is around. In the
new facility, we can drive the prisoner though the sallyport straight into
the prisoner processing room."

Biales noted that in Clayton, the interview room is near the radio room, and
suspects may overhear sensitive information. And sometimes in the current
office, he said, people would notice armed agents in plain clothes and
wonder if a holdup was coming. The new site also has improved parking,
Biales said.

"This (new building) was built and designed for a 24-hour drug enforcement
environment. This building gives us the tools to do our job at top capacity.
Personally, it's rewarding to see our employees get a workplace that's
conducive to the work they do."

The new project was designed with security in mind. After the bombing of the
federal building in Oklahoma City, the government conducted "vulnerability
assessment" studies for high-risk agencies such as the DEA and FBI. As a
result, new DEA and FBI buildings must be set back 100 feet from the
roadways, and not near residential neighborhoods, day care centers or
elementary schools.

"Nurseries and the DEA don't go together," Biales said.

The FBI moved to a free-standing headquarters at 222 Market Street several
years ago.

Gregg Alexander, facilities project manager for DEA, goes all over the
country overseeing construction of its new buildings. He called St. Louis'
new facility "one of the best, if not the best, in the country."

"It's better than state-of-the-art," he said. "This project was done right,
right from the beginning when he began looking for land. This was well
thought-out.

"We saw what we liked, and didn't like, in some other facilities and used
that to our advantage."

Another overseer of the project, Kathy Howard, the lease contracting officer
for the General Services Administration, added: "We're pretty proud of this
building. It was procured under our 'design excellence' program, which
looked at quality and price."

The pre-cast concrete and glass structure has been developed privately, and
the DEA will lease it at $26-$28 a square foot, meaning annual lease
payments of about $2 million.

The developer is Harwood & Associates of McLean, Va., a 20- year-old company
that specializes in developing commercial and government buildings.

The DEA lease at the UMB Bank Building is expiring.

St. Louis' Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority approved 10 years of
property tax abatement for the project. City officials estimate that the $14
million a year payroll for DEA employees will generate about $215,000 a year
in payroll and earnings taxes for the city.

The DEA facility is one of several new office buildings developed by or for
federal agencies in downtown in recent years. They include the $200 million
Eagleton U.S. Courthouse, a $12 million building for the Veterans
Administration (just west of the DEA building), a $32 million building for
the FBI and $2.4 million building for the Social Security Administration at
701 North 16th Street.