The FBI’s Video Surveillance Unit is installing antennas on the roofs of Trump Plaza in New Rochelle, New York, and Trump World Tower in New York City, according to previously unreported federal contracting documents.
The FBI handed a no-bid contract to NAMSI LLC, a company that manages the rooftops of several Trump-branded properties.
The FBI categorized it with the description “Leasing of Building Space to the Federal Government by Owners.” The document describes the Trump-branded properties as “optimal antenna locations for the ACRx system in the New York City region.”
The ACRx — Adaptive Central Receive — antennas are used to pick up video-surveillance signals.
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“If the FBI is unable to use NAMSI for the sites referenced above, the required technology cannot be installed on locations that have already been vetted and approved,” the documents read.
The Department of Justice awarded NAMSI a $72,525 contract for the two installations on Sept. 1. NAMSI has also received no-bid awards for other ACRx installations on non-Trump-branded properties.
The White House referred a request for comment to the FBI, and neither the FBI nor NAMSI responded to requests for comment. The Trump Organization also did not return a request for comment.
The Trump Organization stopped managing Trump Plaza, a high-rise condominium, in 2021 but continues to manage Trump World Tower, the Manhattan condo skyscraper. It’s unclear if Trump’s business organization directly stands to make money from the use of the Trump World Tower’s roof by the FBI, and if so, how much.
The FBI has had an ACRx antenna atop Trump World Tower since at least 2022, per a prior contract awarded to NAMSI.
President Donald Trump had a less-than-cordial relationship with the FBI between his two presidential terms.
In August 2022, the FBI executed a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and seized boxes of documents Trump had taken with him after departing the White House in 2021.
The special counsel investigation into Trump’s handling of the classified documents resulted in charges against him related to his retention of the documents. Florida U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, who was overseeing the case, dismissed the charges, ruling in 2024 that special counsel Jack Smith had been unconstitutionally appointed. The DOJ stopped pursuing the inquiry after Trump won the 2024 presidential election.
The Justice Department under Trump has dramatically shifted its priorities. It’s probed the president’s perceived foes and former FBI employees tied to the search at Mar-a-Lago have been subpoenaed.
The Drug Enforcement Administration has also contracted with NAMSI to use Trump World Tower for “antenna and equipment” dating back to at least 2020.
The government’s need for the new antennas atop Trump buildings dates to 2015, when the Federal Communications Commission auctioned so-called AWS-3 airwaves, raising $44.9 billion.
In doing so, it sold the 1755–1780 MHz spectrum used by the Department of Justice’s video surveillance links, forcing it to adjust its spectrum usage.
The new antennas at the Trump-branded properties “will mitigate issues caused by the AWS-3 frequency auction of 2015 to DOJ’s video surveillance microwave transmission capabilities in the New York City area of operations,” per the contracting documents.
As of March, the switch was set to prompt fixes at between 35 to 45 sites, with “an anticipated six to ten installations occurring per year,” per a request for information document posted by the FBI to a federal contracting website.
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