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, which houses the Department of Justice — a watershed moment in how the government manages its real estate portfolio.
The move is part of a larger effort by GSA’s Public Buildings Service to offload properties and leases that the Trump administration deems no longer necessary for government operations. The agency owns over 440 buildings nationwide, totaling nearly 80 million square feet.
“For decades, chronic underfunding has left many of these buildings functionally obsolete and unsuitable for the modern federal workforce,” according to a statement from the agency. “We can no longer assume that funding will materialize to fix these longstanding issues.”
Other high-profile buildings set to go on the market include the Hubert H. Humphrey Building (home to the Department of Health and Human Services), the Frances Perkins Building (home to the Department of Labor), and even GSA’s own headquarters, a stark reminder that the agency is not immune to the restructuring.
A White House official who requested anonymity to discuss internal decisions stated that the structures GSA intends to offload “all have building repairs that would be cheaper to sell than fix.” GSA maintains a number of metrics on federally owned buildings, such as maintenance costs, age, and occupancy, which can be used to make disposal decisions, according to an agency official.
Following the publication of an earlier version of this story, the list of “non-core” properties was updated to exclude all Washington buildings as well as dozens in Maryland and Virginia. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on why the changes were implemented.
GSA did not specify where the thousands of federal employees housed in these buildings would work or speculate on who would purchase such buildings. The Trump administration has been pressuring telecommuters to work in person.
What is staying? GSA emphasized that it will keep properties deemed critical to government operations, such as courthouses, land ports of entry, and facilities required for national defense and law enforcement.
The Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia areas, which have the highest concentration of federal workers in the country, stand to lose the most if the federal government removes all parcels originally designated as non-core.
Maryland would lose 83 parcels, one-third of which are currently used to support FDA research, while the District and Virginia would lose up to 41 and 28 units, respectively, including major federal agency headquarters.
GSA may not sell all of its offices. According to the agency’s press release, 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.”
