Nearly 1,700 Navy Yard employees, including witnesses and wounded victims of the Sept. 16 shooting rampage have been relocated to new office space in Southwest Washington, DC.
The Navy has moved the employees while it completes a repair and renovation of the shooting site, Navy Yard Building 197, the headquarters of Naval Sea Systems Command.
Those renovations, which include the completion of an on-site remembrance area for the victims, are expected to take at least one year before completion.
The temporary headquarters are inside a former Coast Guard office tower at Buzzard Point, near Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. The Navy has refurbished some of the office space and cubicles. News4 I-Team cameras were allowed access inside, finding walls already adorned with Navy logos, drawings and agency seals.
Shops, a barber, a dry cleaner, a bank and cafeteria have been set up inside the facility. Many of the witnesses of the September shooting spree were in the Building 197 cafeteria when the shots were first fired.
A spokesman for Naval Sea Systems Command says the agency expects to house 2,775 employees in the Buzzard Point office space, once the offices are fully set up.
The Navy has selected a contractor for the renovations of Building 197, but a firm completion date remains unclear.
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Employee Aaron Alexis shot and killed 12 people during the September rampage. He was later killed by police gunfire.
