When former FBI Director James Comey visited Redstone Arsenal in 2016, he talked about bringing additional FBI missions to north Alabama, describing it almost four years ago as a potential “center of gravity.”

And now it's happening.

With thousands of FBI jobs on the horizon at Redstone, the bureau is now in the process of building a place for them all to work.

At the annual Redstone Update on Wednesday at the Von Braun Center, Rob Hamilton of the FBI spotlighted the campus reminiscent of a college setting that’s under construction in the heart of the Army base in Huntsville. On the FBI’s north campus alone, Hamilton – the bureau’s senior executive for operations at Redstone – said seven construction projects were ongoing on the FBI’s 243-acre site.

The FBI earlier this year said it would ultimately bring more than 4,000 jobs to Huntsville over the next 8 to 10 years to Redstone Arsenal, an appealing destination for its secure location, ample space and the chance to unite with existing FBI missions already at the base.

"It's a very exciting time in a very busy construction zone, as you can imagine," Hamilton told the audience of business leaders and executives. "This will be a true modern campus."

A CNBC report last month described the FBI’s presence at Redstone Arsenal as “HQ2” -- essentially a backup to the FBI headquarters in Washington.

A rendering of the FBI's north campus at Redstone Arsenal displayed during the FBI's presentation Dec. 4, 2019, at the annual Redstone Update.

Hamilton said the FBI has 450 employees at present at Redstone Arsenal and about 1,400 jobs are expected to be transferred from Washington in the summer of 2021. At last year’s update, Hamilton announced that 1,350 jobs were moving to Huntsville.

The growth is expected to reach such levels that the FBI has sketched out sites for future buildings to meet whatever challenges arise to help protect the country, Hamilton said. The FBI is also building the first vertical parking garage on Redstone Arsenal to maximize its available space.

There is even a tone-setting entrance to the under-construction campus, a design created to underscore the importance of the work at what Hamilton repeatedly called FBI Redstone.

"When they come in to work every day," Hamilton said, "there is no grander entrance to an FBI facility across the country than what we have here."

At the gated entrance to the campus – similar to arsenal gates – the lettering above the entry control plaza spells out "Federal Bureau of Investigation." And just below it, "Redstone Arsenal, Alabama."

A picture of that entrance circulated throughout the FBI – "went viral," Hamilton said – and brought back perhaps a tongue-in-cheek response that was taken seriously.

"Somebody wrote back and said it looked like we are pulling up to the Magic Kingdom at Disney World," Hamilton said. "That's exactly what we want our people to feel like when they are pulling up to work every day. That's part of that tone-setting that's very important to us."

Once inside the gates, the FBI mission is as sprawling as its campus. In addition to the Technical Explosive Device Analytical Center that Comey cut the ribbon on that day, there is the operations support building that will provide workspace for 1,300 people, a technology building that Hamilton said features, "Infrastructure focused on computer network defense through 24/7 monitoring of the FBI's enterprise networks and selected high-risk assets."

Or, put another way, "An incredibly important building for the FBI, an incredibly important mission is going to take place in that building," Hamilton said.

There is also an innovation center that will be, for the FBI, the "first of its kind, state of the art facility, dedicated to cyber threat intelligence, data analytics, training and targeting rapidly changing 21st century threats," Hamilton said.

Even the FBI's budgeting office – which oversees the bureau's $9 billion allocation -- is relocating from Washington to Redstone Arsenal.

"Our FBI budget is now formulated and executed out of FBI Redstone," Hamilton said.

Add in a green space courtyard and workout facility for employees that Hamilton said will be the best in the FBI along with its credit union, a coffee shop and other amenities in a sort of student union for professionals and the college-like campus begins to emerge.

"We've designed this campus in the spirit of a college campus," Hamilton said. "We want everything to be within a 5- to 7-minute walk and we want everybody to have a number of collision points (to encourage collaboration)."

And while training for agents and analysts will continue at the FBI's base in Quantico, Virginia, the graduate level of training will take place at Redstone Arsenal.

Hamilton also touched on prospects for future growth of the south campus, which is the home of the FBI’s Hazardous Explosives School that trains thousands of law enforcement officers each year from around the country. The spacious 1,200-acre south campus can provide a field-training venue for agents among other “exciting growth opportunities,” Hamilton said.