The concept for a massive "trade center", which would become an international headquarters for corporations and trade associations, was a more successful project. In June 1983, the Federal City Council proposed that a huge $300 million structure be built on unused land adjacent to Maine Avenue SW. Despite local citizen opposition, the organization convinced D.C. Mayor Marion Barry to begin pushing the plan through the D.C. City Council and Congress. Opposition from executive branch agencies, however, derailed the plan, and by 1986 the Federal City Council was looking for an alternative site for the building. In late 1986, the association began pushing for construction of the trade center on a parking lot in Federal Triangle, an area originally intended for a major government office building in the 1930s but never built due to the financial distress caused by the Great Depression. This site won near-universal approval, and in 1987 Congress authorized construction of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.; ; ; ; ; ; ; Donald A. Brown, who chaired the Federal City Council's International Center Task Force, was one of five people nominated to the U.S. International Cultural and Trade Center Commission, which served as a board of supervisors overseeing the construction of the building. Terence Golden, who was director of the federal government's General Services Administration (GSA) and who helped shepherd the legislation authorizing the building through Congress, later was elected chairman of the board of directors of the Federal City Council. Originally intended to cost $363 million, the $818 million Ronald Reagan Building opened on May 5, 1998, after years of funding and construction delays.
