Nope. East coast business units that do work around DC. We on the west coast are libruls are not fond of that decision.
Starting construction without a full set of documents isn’t out of the norm. On most projects we work on these days, the drawings are broken into different packages, eg foundations, site, structural, architectural, etc. But you at least need the architects to “freeze the backgrounds” so other designers can get to work.
If they’re still working on the concept of the plan, then yeah, that’s really strange - and will be full of changes leading the project to miss the schedule and being over budget.
On projects like these; assuming there’s stone and custom materials, you’ll want to order materials far in advance. Any delay in material releases means the schedule moves right. So yeah… we’ll probably end up with a federal building with plaster and clad with hardy board.