Which federal agencies are authorized to lease property from the private sector? If you had asked that question of any federal official before last month, you might have drawn no more than an educated guess, if not an outright blank. Certainly there is the General Services Administration (GSA), which acts as a kind of super-landlord […]
The David W. Dyer Courthouse in Miami. An elegant building in the process of slow deterioration. (Photo: Carol M. Highsmith, courtesy of the Library of Congress) Continuing his examination of underperforming and vacant federal real estate, last Friday (March 8) Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) held the first field hearing of the House Oversight and Government […]
On the second day of congressional hearings on the GSA Las Vegas Conference scandal, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure’s Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management, led by Committee Chairman John Mica…
At least three Washington, D.C., area counties have expressed interest housing a new $1.2 billion FBI headquarters complex and the nearly 12,000 jobs it will bring. On December 8, 2011, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works approved a resolution directing that the new headquarters facility meet the following qualifications. It must: Be located […]
“It’s really expensive to be poor.” This was the comment from Dr. Dorothy Robyn, the GSA’s Public Buildings Commissioner, at yesterday’s Federal Real Property Association conference in Washington, DC. How true! GSA’s inability to adequately fund improvements to its real estate assets is costing it money on both sides of the ledger–revenue and operating costs. […]
Rural post office slated for closure in Slayden, Tennessee (photo: WKRN-TV Nashville) A plan to close hundreds of postal facilities and eliminate overnight delivery of first-class mail would not save as much as the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has projected—according, at least, to the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), which came to this conclusion in an […]
Ever wonder why each time you see a graph of GSA lease expirations, it seems like the expirations volume in the upcoming year is the largest ever? Well, there’s a logical, and unfortunate, reason for it: GSA has struggled to keep up with its leasing activity causing it to increasingly engage in short-term extensions and […]
Near the end of his Administration, on December 16, 2016, President Barack Obama made a Republican politician very happy. Jeff Denham, first elected to Congress from California’s 19th District and reelected three times from the redrawn…
Which independent federal agency’s predecessor was created on July 26, 1775, by a decree of the Second Continental Congress? Here’s a hint: it’s also the third-largest civilian employer in the nation (behind only the federal government and Wal-Mart) and maintains the largest fleet of vehicles (more than 218,000) in the world. The correct answer is […]
The first increments of the U.S. Coast Guard relocation to its new St. Elizabeths headquarters begins August 1st. Since groundbreaking in 2009, 160,000 truckloads of earth have been excavated, 250,000 cubic yards of concrete have been poured and 40 miles of plumbing pipes have been installed in Southeast D.C., all in preparation for a new […]
Facing a projected budget deficit of more than $14 billion, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) announced last month (on February 23) that it will slash the size of its mail processing network by almost half. Of the 264 plants (out of a total of 461 plants nationwide) on a closing review list, 223 will be […]
Each year, the House and Senate authorize each federal agency, department, or program to spend a specific amount of money, and the President signs the bill into law. But this money may not be spent until Congress also has explicitly appropriated it for a given purpose. An agency may, for example, be authorized to spend […]
Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Tom Carper (D-DE), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Scott Brown (R-MA) at press conference announcing postal reform plan (Photo: Charles Dharapak/Associated Press) In a 62–37 vote late last month (April 25), the Senate approved the 21st Century Postal Service Act (S. 1789), a bipartisan bill that promises financial relief for the U.S. Postal Service […]
It’s that time of year. Market reports are published, conferences held and presentations delivered. We are all talking about the market: “What happened last year?” and “What can we forecast for this next year and beyond?” Unfortunately, some of the answers can be misleading. Here are three stats that are often cited in fundamentally incorrect ways: […]
