 The goal of the merger was for the government to ultimately spend less maintaining a new building than an old one.It was estimated that the new facility would cost about $172 million less to manage each year.The original 2005 estimate of the cost of shutting down WRAMC, and shifting it across town to Bethesda, and other locations, was "just under $900 million" according to Brian Lepore of the Government Accountability Office (GAO).