GSA prepares to sell over 400 federal properties
53 comments
·March 5, 2025dataflow
KennyBlanken
Anyone planning on this might want to consider that particularly after a Supreme Court decision a decade or so ago, the feds can exercise eminent domain for almost trivial reasons.
They also might want to consider that the sales could potentially be later determined to have been part of an illegal liquidation of a government agency - or even treason - and find themselves with nothing.
skissane
> They also might want to consider that the sales could potentially be later determined to have been part of an illegal liquidation of a government agency - or even treason - and find themselves with nothing.
You really think that’s going to happen with the current SCOTUS majority? Even if a lower court ruled that way, you think the Roberts court is going to uphold it? And absent radical schemes like “court packing”, conservatives have got SCOTUS locked up for years, even decades, to come
PaywallBuster
commercial real estate still recovering from post covid / work from home situation
so federal government has plenty of negotiating power
also with layoffs the space requirements may have changed and such large buildings may be excessive
Aurornis
> commercial real estate still recovering from post covid / work from home situation
> so federal government has plenty of negotiating power
You have this backward. The government is trying to sell. If real estate is still recovering (aka down) then they don't have much negotiating power.
Buyer's market.
scrose
OPs point is funnily accurate if you’d like to consider a certain ‘real-estate’ person in government could stand to benefit from the buildings being sold at the lowest price (recovering market) and that same person people will likely be friends with the buyers (lots of negotiating power).
They never mentioned whether it’d actually be beneficial for the government.
Can’t wait for all of our federal agency buildings to be named after different members of the Trump family once they’ve changed hands! /s
rayiner
Why would they be able to charge arbitrary amounts of money? The Federal Government owns 37 million square feet of office space in the DC area. Out of 370 million square feet of total office space in the region.
According to the article:
> A White House official granted anonymity to discuss internal decisions said that the structures GSA plans to offload “all have building repairs that would be cheaper to sell than fix.”
I don't know if you're familiar with the commercial real estate market in D.C., but the market has tanked completely. 50-year old buildings (like the Hoover building) are basically worthless and are being torn down.
miltonlost
And yet there's a Return To Office mandate, and now selling off offices. You're trying to rationalize selling off
sitkack
Pennies on the dollar. No conflict of interest on the part of the buyers.
loire280
Unbelievable that they'll be selling the federal buildings in downtown Chicago in this property market. Very short-sighted to give up those prime locations in a fire sale.
hamburga
Every action should be assumed to be as short-sighted as the American President’s attention span.
The people who articulated a more complex and nuanced strategy didn’t get any traction. We’re left with those who want chaos, power grabs, and fantasies of a hemispheric empire.
aaomidi
> The people who articulated a more complex and nuanced strategy
Damn we had those? Where?
Eddy_Viscosity2
Transferring public assets to private hands is very profitable to the buyers. That's how Putin became a trillionaire.
IncreasePosts
Some federal buildings considered for sale have a utilization rate of like 25%.
How long should the government keep paying for the upkeep while badly using it?
nielsbot
Depends how much the upkeep is and how much rent they expect to pay for buildings that will be leased back to them at profit-making rates.
Are we also assuming the government will not need that space in the future? What happens then?
Paying someone to make a profit on property at the government's expense is not efficient.
dataflow
Do you think the rent will be lower than whatever it's paying for upkeep? Why?
KennyBlanken
Given the raw # of government employees hasn't grown in ~40 years, plus we have the lowest # of government employees per capita...
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snowwrestler
> After an earlier version of this story published, the “non-core” properties was updated to exclude all Washington buildings and dozens in Maryland in Virginia that were previously included. The White House did not respond to a request for comment about why the changes were made.
The initial list included a bunch of HQ buildings that made no sense to sell. For example the Department of Justice is always going to need a headquarters and it should always be within the District of Columbia to exclude state interference.
And it's not like tons of DC commercial real estate companies are flush with capital to buy old federal buildings downtown right now.
rayiner
GSA has been planning to sell office space since last year: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/facilities-construction/2024/.... It’s office space in DC is significantly underutilized.
Aurornis
Different list.
The current administration has added far more properties to the list, including major headquarters buildings.
It doesn't make sense to sell the HQs and make everyone RTO at the same time.
shawn_w
When you're also firing everyone who would have returned to those offices...
throwaway5752
It is a perfect plan when you are trying institutionally destroy oversight mechanisms. Fire the people and sell the buildings they worked in. Create maximal damage and work to restore oversight. It's actually quite brilliant, even though it is evil.
throw0101a
From your link:
> The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a policy blueprint crafted by former Trump administration officials, states that “COVID made telework ubiquitous, but the law and regulations are still stuck in an era when telework was unique.”
And yet we have stories like "Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights":
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43253562
So at the same time we have the administration saying "RTO" and the admin's playbook people saying (in the past?) "we have RTO, why do we need space?".
nxobject
> GSA may not sell all of the offices. The agency said in its statement that it “welcomes creative solutions, including sale-lease backs, ground leases and other forms of public/private partnerships to drive the full optimization of our space.”
Selling the property only to rent it back, eh? The properties under consideration for sale include agency headquarters (HHS, GSA, DOL, DOJ, FBI), and not to mention scientific facilities (FDA), and unless Musk and Trump intend to fully close those departments or to make these departments remote-first...
fluidcruft
Back towards the end of his first term, Trump started moving a lot of agencies out of DC. I think BLM was headed to Colorado etc. IIRC there was also talk of moving FDA back then.
ibejoeb
This type of arrangement isn't novel. Property is high and the space is underutilized. Sell high, lease the fraction that you need, and have the option to buy back at the end of the contract (often with the right of first refusal.)
On your second point: it does look like there are going to be significantly fewer federal employees, so unless there are also going to be big relocation programs, most of these places are going to continue to be under capacity. It's not in anyone's interest to have these places locked up, especially in urban cores.
edit: as usual, I'm curious what my error is here. Please explain. Thanks.
jeffbee
This is not "a shift in how the government manages its real estate." This is looting.
actionfromafar
The post-Soviet / early Russia oligarch playbook.
The US really is losing the Cold War. It just lost async.
Edit: it's also to destroy the institutions by making it harder to rehire and house people after the firings are done, as pointed out by someone else here.
IncreasePosts
Actually, it's not a shift because the HSA has been offloading underutilized government buildings for 30+ years.
drweevil
>“We can no longer assume that funding will materialize to fix these longstanding issues.”
This is blatantly disingenuous. An administration that is doing pretty much as it pleases with hardly a check, with friendly majorities in both houses of Congress, claiming powerlessness? Please. And how is selling these facilities going to solve the problem? Do they really expect us to believe buyers will somehow fix these problems for free?
yongjik
Great, making sure that the US government will be on the hook for exorbitant rents, even long after Trump is gone. The party of "government can't do anything right, because I'll make it so" strikes again.
nine_zeros
The government is for sale - private equity style perpetual plunder.
chasd00
I looked up one of the ones in Dallas and have been inside it. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to buy the Dallas buildings, they should just be demolished.
IncreasePosts
The FBI HQ had a lot of interesting accomodations due to the secure nature of the work there. Who could take it over and use those features? A defense contractor I guess?
snowwrestler
That building specifically has been targeted as a tear-down for a long time. It's truly a shitty building and the FBI has been trying to relocate for years. If they succeed in selling it, it will get knocked down.
throwaway5752
"The General Services Administration announced Tuesday that it will begin selling off some of the federal government’s most recognizable office buildings, including the J. Edgar Hoover Building, which serves as the FBI headquarters in Washington, and the Robert F. Kennedy Building, home to the Department of Justice — a landmark shift in how the government manages its real estate portfolio."
Selling the FBI and DOJ Headquarters. You can view the list yourself, https://www.gsa.gov/real-estate/real-estate-services/real-pr...
sitkack
If you are in Seattle, the main federal building is listed. This contains the IRS and the offices of the representatives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_M._Jackson_Federal_Build...
I assume this is to let private corporations hold the government hostage in perpetuity and charge arbitrary amounts of money? Because the government would have no leverage in negotiating a lower rent? And if this prevents it from functioning, then even better?