Huntsville isn't just for space. The northern Alabama metro area known famously as Rocket City thanks to its aerospace and defense roots will soon become home to an expansive FBI outpost viewed internally as a second headquarters.

The FBI is investing $1 billion to build out its footprint in the area, a plan that will potentially add thousands of additional jobs to Huntsville's overall employment.

"We really look at it like a HQ2, a backup for the footprint that we have here in Washington, D.C.," says Paul Abbate, associate deputy director at the FBI, the top-ranking executive overseeing the expansion, in a rare sit-down inside the bureau's D.C. headquarters. "It's really the future of the FBI, and it's all about technology, innovation, talent and resiliency."

That HQ2 will be a state-of-the-art campus on Redstone Arsenal – the massive U.S. Army post bordering the city of Huntsville. It will focus on everything from terrorism to ballistics to explosive devices.

Abatte says it will also be used to counter digital threats in an increasingly connected world.

"Our cyberdivision views Huntsville as a current and really future training ground for the tactics, skills expertise that we need in the cyber-realm to work across all the threats we face and put ourselves and our people in the best position to stop that from coming at us," he says.

The Army leased nearly 1,600 acres of its land on the arsenal to the FBI. Six buildings are in the works, with three currently under construction.

"The Army has been a phenomenal partner with us down on Redstone," says Nancy Brown, the FBI's program executive for 21st Century Construction at the Redstone Arsenal. "It gives us secure infrastructure and space with proximities to those government partners that allows us to do more advanced training, data analytics as well as providing a quality of life for our employees as they transition down."

"We have five lanes," adds Brown, "there's going to be a lot of people," she says referring to the entrance lanes to the facilty.

The FBI already has 400 employees working on Redstone now, and once the first phase of construction is completed in 2021, nearly 1,400 employees from the D.C.-area will be relocated to Huntsville; and another 4,000-plus jobs reportedly could materialize there over the next decade – many, new hires.

"We want ... the best and the brightest, from wherever, to come there and work with us and alongside us in Huntsville," says Abbate. "It's already proven to have the potential to draw that type of talent there."