Several times on this blog I’ve observed that GSA has been engaged in a spirited game of can-kicking when it comes to leasing. Much of this has been due to intense budget distress from record deficits, rising debt, the sequester, and a series of continuing resolutions, all cast against a backdrop of hopeless political dysfunction. Without long-term clarity of […]
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”…
Bannister Federal Complex (photo: www.thepitch.com) The Bannister Federal Complex, located at 1500 and 2000 E. Bannister Road in south Kansas City, Mo., 13 miles south of downtown, will be largely shut down within the next two years, according to a GSA announcement made last Wednesday, February 15. The 5.1 million-square-foot, 300-acre complex was dedicated on […]
One of the great frustrations landlords encounter with GSA is the Government’s frequent and seemingly reflexive insistence on termination rights. We conducted a quick analysis of 1,165 procurements conducted by GSA in the past 7 years and found that in 70% of them GSA requested a termination right. GSA’s default expectation for most of these is […]
The relationship between the 112th Congress and GSA is not particularly cozy. The House of Representatives, under the leadership of Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman, John Mica (R-FL), has sparred with GSA over efforts to relocate…
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…
It has been almost two weeks since the Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management Subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee convened its May 22nd hearing entitled “Saving Taxpayer Dollars: Freezing the Federal Real Estate Footprint”. I’m just now getting around to writing about this–a testament to how busy things have been for […]
The table above lists the long term savings submitted by the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on 3/8/12. Savings are calculated as the difference between the maximum rent originally requested by GSA and the maximum rent ultimately approved by the House. However, the savings represented for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence are […]
It’s hardly news that the largest single consumer of energy in the United States is the federal government, with its stock of 360,000 buildings and 650,000 fleet vehicles. What is surprising, though, is the extent to…
At last week’s National Federal Development Association conference, Dr. Dennis Eisen presented his new Government Real Estate Index, which he bills as the “Dow Jones Index for Government Real Estate”. Dr. Eisen, one of the true…
The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), which leases office space on behalf of most federal agencies, has begun using a streamlined lease acquisition program in several markets across the nation and will continue to expand into new markets. We’ve profiled this program, known as the Automated Advanced Acquisition Program (AAAP), previously on this blog; and we […]
Watching the National Science Foundation shuffle in the starting blocks, most of the Northern Virginia real estate community has expressed certainty that, especially in this budget environment, NSF is unlikely to be moving from its present…
Recently adopted standards in the District of Columbia now require new buildings to meet LEED standards. That is, they must meet the Green Building Council’s energy-efficient, environmentally friendly requirements of building design and construction, operation and maintenance, and, what is less easy to control, interaction with the surrounding neighborhood. All new buildings in the District […]
During the first half of this year Congress has hosted a number of hearings, both on Capitol Hill and in various cities across the United States, that provide a clear view of its objectives regarding federal real estate. All of these hearings have one goal in common: reduce costs. This goal is not new of course, but faced with the prospect […]
