Moody’s website reports U.S. debt rating remains Aaa…for now It was widely reported yesterday (Tuesday, September 11) that the United States is in danger of another credit downgrade, this time by Moodys. In its press release the credit rating agency said that it would likely downgrade the U.S. government’s debt rating from Aaa to Aa1 […]
We recently discovered Pinterest. The service brands itself as “a tool for collecting and organizing things you love.” Well, we love government real estate so we decided to start our own Pinterest site entitled exactly that: “Government Real Estate”. It’s a place for us to post some of our favorite photos of government projects, people […]
(Cartoon: John Darkow, Columbia Daily Tribune) With both the House and Senate out of session this week, only four days remain for lawmakers and the White House to agree on a plan to reduce the deficit in order to avert sequestration—the $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts (this year) required by the Budget Control Act […]
What happens when Congress fails to pass a formal federal appropriations bill, and/or the President fails to sign it into law by October 1st? (We ask “when” rather than “if” because this has happened every year since FY 2000.) In order to avoid a government shutdown, Congress passes a joint resolution—known as a “continuing resolution”—that […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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: […]
View Larger Map Barrow, Alaska proudly names itself “The Farthest North American City” so it’s no surprise that it would also be home to the northernmost federal lease. If you’ve ever visited Alaska you know that it’s lifeblood is a series of airports that connect cities throughout the state. Where there are commercial airports there […]
Hensel Phelps was recently awarded the $192 million contract to build a new data center for the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) in Urbana, Maryland. The data center will be constructed on a 65 acre site SSA purchased last Fall. The 400,000 square foot National Service Center will perform the primary data operations of […]
The heart of the SAMMC complex including the 760,000 Consolidated Tower project funded through the 2005 BRAC. Located in the heart of San Antonio, Fort Sam Houston is one of the nation’s oldest Army bases. It was established in 1845—in rented buildings and a quartermaster supply depot in the Alamo—as the Post at San Antonio, […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) announced on Wednesday (Feb. 15) that it will relocate about 1,000 employees from its Heartland Region headquarters at the Bannister Federal Complex—a 5.1 million-square-foot former defense plant in south Kansas City—to leased space in downtown Kansas City, Missouri (GSA’s Region 6 office manages more than 400 federally owned and leased […]
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) introduced a bill last week (Thursday, January 30) that would empower U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to enter into agreements with local governments or private entities to fund improvements at land ports of entry. The Cross-Border Trade Enhancement Act of 2013 (S. 178, a reintroduction of S. […]
“CEA” is the abbreviation for “Central Employment Area”. The term has significance in federal leasing dating back to August 16, 1978, when President Jimmy Carter signed Executive Order 12072. The Executive Order included a key provision that has greatly impacted the location of federal offices ever since: Except where such selection is otherwise prohibited, the […]
