Pandemic-related occupancy concerns continue to rattle some federal-leased property owners. These jitters have been exacerbated in recent months as reports confirm that the size of GSA’s leased space inventory has declined sharply, accelerating the previous rate of reduction. The April 2021 GSA lease inventory now stands at 182.5 MSF, which is a 5 MSF reduction […]
In 1906, Vilfredo Pareto observed that 80% of Italy’s land was owned by 20% of its population. Eventually this observation was memorialized as the Pareto Principle or, more commonly, and applied to describe many phenomena, such as where 80% of a country’s wealth is held by 20% of its citizens, where 80% of a company’s sales come from 20% of its […]
GSA’s aging inventory is not a new topic on this blog; a 2017 analysis revealed frequent lease extensions and a persistent decline in new construction as primary drivers. As the pandemic persists, with associated economic jitters…
With over 1,000 leased facilities, often in single-tenant buildings, the Social Security Administration (SSA) is a staple of many federal investor portfolios. Like other federal agencies, however, SSA has been dutifully implementing the “Reduce the Footprint”…
The November 19 hearing, “Federal Triangle South: Redeveloping Underutilized Federal Property Through Public Private Partnerships,” began with optimistic opening remarks. Lou Barletta (R-PA), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management,…
In the category of not-unexpected-but-still-bad-news, Colliers issued its Q2 2020 Office Market Outlook last week reporting that U.S. office absorption turned negative for the first time in a decade. National office demand was negative 13.6 million square feet (MSF) in the second quarter causing vacancy to rise 40 bps to 11.9%. For comparison, cumulative net […]
On December 27, 2019, the five-person Public Buildings Reform Board (PBRB) presented a report to the Office of Management and Budget that identifies a dozen federal properties that, it urges, should be sold. Guided by the provisions of the Federal Assets Sale and Transfer Act of 2016 (FASTA), the report maintains that properties owned and […]
What federal agency has shrunk to its smallest size in more than a century? The answer—the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO)—is no surprise, given the huge changes in printing and information technology that have taken place…
Which federal agency is in charge of preserving approximately 10 billion pages of textual records; 12 million maps, charts and drawings; 25 million still photographs and graphics; 24 million aerial photographs; 300,000 reels of motion picture film; 400,000 video and sound recordings; and 133 terabytes of electronic data? The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) […]
GSAXCHANGE, the investment sales arm of Colliers Government Solutions, has published its Mid-Year 2015 “Government-Leased Assets” report, which includes an overview of sales activity and trends in the federal sector. Some insights from this report: Cap rates…
A century and a half ago, after the Civil War had ended, the federal government began an ambitious program of building national hospitals for wounded veterans—a few at first, and then, as those veterans became elderly,…
Standing in a very long line at the neighborhood polling place seems like a good time to blog. As a Virginia resident my vote really counts today and it appears that hundreds of my fellow Virginians feel the same way. Virginia is a “Battleground State”, one that will probably decide the presidential election. Yet, none […]
From its peak in 2013, the number of long-term GSA-leased properties declined steadily for four years before stabilizing. But only in the past year has that portion of the property inventory started to recover. This trend was easy to predict because the number of long-term lease procurements initiated by GSA has been improving in recent […]
1 World Trade Center under construction (on left) (photo: Pwojdacz | Wikimedia Commons) While the GSA reportedly is close to finalizing a long-awaited lease at the iconic One World Trade Center (1WTC), the deal remains unsigned, despite the owners’ desire to have had the lease executed by July 4. Although both the Senate and the […]
