A new building for the headquarters of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in Manila will start construction and is expected to be finished by 2026. “In the next three years we will see the new headquarters of the NBI, a new home for the NBI,” NBI Director Medardo G. de Lemos said during the groundbreaking ceremony held on Tuesday, May 30. De Lemos said the new building, which will cost about P2.5 billion, “will give way to the coming of a more modern, better, and more comfortable working environment for all of us.” He said the construction can now finally proceed through “our friends and supporters” at the Senate and the House of Representatives. “We have dreamed of this for so many years and it was only last year this dream would come into realization when they funded initially the project for P450 million,” De Lemos said. “And this year we hope and we will ask again and knock at the doors of our benefactors to fund the remaining balance of the whole project,” he added. Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Manuel Bonoan conveyed the DPWH’s commitment to finish the project. “The old building will be demolished but a new 12-storey building with a total area of almost 50,000 square meters will rise to provide cutting edge working spaces, storage rooms, and function rooms that are carefully designed to cater to the needs of the employees,” said Bonoan in a message read by DPWH Undersecretary Roberto R. Bernardo. “It will feature modern offices, conference rooms and other amenities that will enable for more efficient and effective workplace for the agency,” Bonoan also said in his message. De Lemos said the new NBI building “will have three towers, a multi-level parking level lot with a dormitory for our transient agents and employees, a gymnasium, a shooting range, the home for our forensic equipment.” In 2020 after the NBI building was declared unfit by the City of Manila in 2019, most of the officials and employees transferred to a temporary building at the V-Tech Tower in Quezon City.