It is a well-accepted fact that the federal leased space market is shrinking. This is troublesome, yet for investors the real question has been whether the shrinking inventory has also made investment opportunities more scarce. The answer, unfortunately,…

SOM rendering of the new L.A. courthouse (source: GSA) Downtown Los Angeles is one step closer to getting a new federal courthouse. Earlier this month (Dec. 10), GSA awarded a $318 million design-build contract for the project to Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) and Clark Construction Group. The 550,000-square-foot shimmering white cube—to be built on […]

Which federal agency’s headquarters received a 2012 Award of Excellence in Architecture from AIA DC (the Washington chapter of the American Institute of Architects)? Skidmore, Owings & Merrill won the award for its design of the Suitland, Md., headquarters of the U.S. Bureau of the Census (also referred to as the Census Bureau), a LEED […]

Photo: GSA Child Care Desk Guide The title of a new report by the US General Services Administration (GSA), issued on January 30, 2020, speaks volumes: “Child Care Centers in GSA-Controlled Buildings Have Significant Security Vulnerabilities.” The 30-page report that follows, drawing on audits conducted between September 2017 and August 2018, is heavily redacted. However, […]

“Man Controlling Trade” sculpture outside FTC headquarters building Two Art Deco sculptures adorn the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) headquarters at Constitution and Pennsylvania avenues, depicting muscular men wrestling rebellious stallions and symbolizing government’s role in controlling trade. But a contentious hearing on December 3rd of the House Subcommittee on Government Operations suggests another interpretation: the […]

With more than 56,000 employees—including about 5,700 new jobs that have resulted from BRAC-related movements—Fort George G. Meade is the largest employer in Maryland, the fifth-largest employment center in the state, and has the third-largest workforce…

On Federal News Radio this past Friday, Elaine Clancy, GSA’s Director of Leasing, was interviewed regarding GSA’s efforts at space reduction and consolidation and her answers underscored a broader theme growing ever louder at GSA: the…

200 Third Street, one of several buildings the Bureau of Public Debt occupies in Parkersburg, WV As we reported in two recent Spotlight pieces, President Obama’s FY 2013 budget proposes consolidating two U.S. Department of the Treasury bureaus—the Bureau of the Public Debt (BPD) and the Financial Management Service (FMS)—into a single organization with a budget […]

View Larger Map As we noted in the previous post, GSA has begun setting the stage for the construction of a massive new FBI headquarters complex somewhere in the National Capital Region. Exactly where that complex will be located is the subject of much speculation, and while a number of jurisdictions are vying to attract […]

There are more than 5,000 distinct owners of GSA-leased properties in the United States but the ten listed above stand apart because, together, their properties house 15% of the entire GSA lease inventory. (GSA, take note: these are your most important landlord customers.) Some notes regarding this list: We have ranked owners by square footage […]

Last year we published our inaugural list of the ten largest owners of GSA-leased properties. In this article we chronicle the top 10 list again, along with a few new honorable mentions. The ranking looks a lot like last year’s but we see some pending property trades that could shake things up in 2015. Some notes regarding this […]

The USPS office on the left may be suitable for backfill by another federal agency. The one on the right…not so much. (Source: GAO Report) The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently recommended that federal property-owning agencies work together and with other agencies to coordinate their space needs, in order to identify ways in which […]

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…

After completing a comprehensive analysis of BRAC 2005—the “biggest, most complex, costliest BRAC round ever”—the Government Accountability Office has released a report identifying a series of lessons learned that could be applied if Congress chooses to authorize future BRAC rounds. Military Bases: Opportunities Exist to Improve Future Base Realignment and Closure Rounds (GAO-13-149), released earlier this month, […]