Which federal agency’s motto is “Freedom’s Front Door”? The U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command (USMEPCOM)—a Department of Defense (DoD) joint civilian and military organization—is charged with the unique and challenging task of determining the physical, mental and moral qualifications of every potential new member of the nation’s armed services. Headquartered at the Great Lakes Naval […]
Which federal agency has been part of five different departments? The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began in 1891 as the Office of Superintendent of Immigration in the Treasury Department. In 1903, the by-then renamed Bureau of Immigration was transferred to the newly created Department of Commerce and Labor. In 1913, it was placed […]
GSA is on track to complete a two-year, $39 million project to link the building systems at 39 of its high-energy-use buildings in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico and Texas on schedule in October, Federal Times reported…
Rep. Jeff Denham (left) and Sen. Tom Carper (right) Congress has been busy this year working on bills meant to pave the way for the disposition of thousands of unneeded or underutilized properties. This is one of those rare instances where the Republican House and the Democratic Senate fundamentally agree. They both concede that the […]
Though the federal lease inventory continued to shrink in 2015, there was plenty of action, especially in the Washington, DC area where most of the big federal tenants reside. Here is a selection of the most notable transaction activity this past year: The Largest New Lease In October, GSA announced the award of a 839,000 RSF lease to Stonebridge Carras to […]
David W. Dyer Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse (Photo: Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division) House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) took his ongoing “Sitting on Our Assets” campaign to Florida this week (Monday, August 6), holding a hearing at the long-vacant David W. Dyer Federal […]
Politicians and economists can be accused of willfully obfuscating the “government employment trend” to serve their ideology. As an example, Republican Senator Rand Paul and liberal economist Paul Krugman engaged in a heated debate last Fall over whether government employment had increased or declined under the Obama administration. Rand Paul asserted that it had increased dramatically […]
As we mentioned in an earlier piece,we’re focusing on two federal agencies that serve Native Americans this week, in honor of Native American Day. The Indian Health Service (IHS), which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is responsible for providing federal health services to approximately 1.9 million American Indians and […]
As we predicted earlier this month, Rep. William “Bill” Shuster (R-Pa.) will replace Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) as chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee—the body that provides oversight for public buildings issues—in the 113th Congress. Mica, who had signaled that he would like to keep the post, was forced to step down as a result […]
According to the 2014 Global Investor Sentiment Report just released by Colliers International, U.S. investors surveyed remain bullish on the prospects for commercial real estate during the next 12 months, with 92% of respondents expecting to increase the level of investment in their property portfolios, compared with just 8% that plan to reduce their portfolios. Reflecting investor optimism, […]
When a landlord leases space to the federal government, it is most often a U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) contracting officer who signs the lease for the United States of America. In fact, as of this writing, the GSA leases more than 190 million square feet in the United States and its territories. The GSA, […]
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) (we pronounce it “Eee-sa”) is sometimes called the light bulb bill for phasing out most incandescents. It has been called “the most sweeping energy efficiency legislation in U.S. history” by the nonprofit Alliance to Save Energy. Originally named the Clean Energy Act of 2007, the bill […]
Dr. Stephen S. Fuller at an AIA conference last October presenting an analysis that one million defense industry jobs could be lost as a result of expected defense budget cuts. This was the pre-cursor to the study released this week. As the threat of sequestration looms ever larger, the results of a new study released […]
Which federal agency is the world’s largest public engineering, design and construction management agency? The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (also known as USACE or simply “the Corps”) is made up of some 37,000 civilian and military personnel delivering engineering services to customers in more than 90 countries worldwide. Although we typically associate it with […]