Consolidate and Sell Real Estate, Back to Office

Economy
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The federal government owns approximately 511 million square feet of office space
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. This includes both owned and leased properties.

Breakdown of Space

  • GSA-managed space:
    • Owns and leases more than 363 million square feet
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    • Of this, about 90 million square feet is in Washington D.C.
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  • Leased space:
    • As of April 2023, GSA managed 7,685 leases, totaling nearly 180 million square feet of space
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Number of Buildings

While an exact number of buildings is not provided in the search results, we can infer some information:

  • GSA manages approximately 1,500 federally-owned buildings used by various federal agencies[

  • The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) occupies 80 leased buildings across the country, plus four headquarters buildings

Underutilized Space

  • Over 24 million square feet of “underutilized” owned and leased space exists across the government’s portfolio
  • This underutilized space accounts for more than 23 million square feet in GSA’s Federal Real Property Portfolio
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Cost of Space

  • The annual cost of space in the Federal Real Property Profile is nearly $8.1 billion
  • This includes:
    • Nearly $2 billion to operate and maintain federally owned buildings
    • About $1.34 billion to operate and maintain leased buildings
    • Around $4.75 billion in annual office lease costs

In order to reduce these costs - the government should begin to sell non-essential real estate. There is an active market for these properties. For instance, post offices are a prime candidate for disposal.

All employees are ordered back to the office. Unused office space should then be consolidated and excess eliminated. It is common for GSA leases to have a termination option so elimination should be simple.

While we are at it - the post office should make money. It is a service and is being exploited by marketing agencies and driving the entity into a massive deficit. This could be to increase shipping prices and also elimination of deliveries. For instance, no Saturday deliveries or no Wednesday. Should create massive savings.

While I am here and picking up pennies in front of the government steamroller, eliminate pennies or nickels if they are more expensive than the cost of printing them. This is just government waste

1 Like
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This is common sense. Consolidation of different organizations in buildings based on size and space needed. Ask all employees to return to work. End work from home policies.
Keep historical buildings, making them a priority for use or lease.