U.S. Government Seeks To Downsize EPA's Atlanta Office By 45%
The Trump administration is looking to shrink the Environmental Protection Agency’s office in Atlanta by nearly 150K SF as it continues its efforts to slash the federal government's real estate footprint.
The General Services Administration, which manages the federal government's real estate, has asked Congress to approve a proposal for the EPA to vacate its 324K SF office at the Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center and move to leased space of up to 178K SF, according to a prospectus filed last month with the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
The new proposed lease would reduce the EPA's usable square footage per employee from 258 SF to 173 SF.
The EPA has long occupied the federally owned building at 100 Alabama St. SW, which the GSA said in the prospectus has sustained water damage that would require about $2.8M to repair, plus “decades of deferred maintenance” would cost an additional $280M.
An EPA spokesperson said that federal building standards have changed since the agency first occupied the building.
“The square footage per employee has been standardized, resulting in a smaller footprint of leased space needed,” a GSA spokesperson said in an email, adding that no staff reduction is planned.
The spokesperson said it is “focused on supporting this administration’s goal of fortifying the federal footprint, and providing the best workplaces for our federal agencies to meet their mission.”
The EPA has plenty of options to choose from in Atlanta's privately owned office market, which is improving but still recovering from high vacancy rates. Corporate leasing activity rose nearly 500K SF to 2.3M SF in the second quarter, helping to push vacancy rates down 230 basis points to 25.6% from the same period last year, according to Savills.
The GSA’s latest proposal comes amid a Trump administration effort to reduce the federal government’s real estate portfolio as the costs of deferred maintenance and repairs add up.
Last month, the Public Buildings Reform Board announced efforts to empty a different federally owned building, the 800K SF Peachtree Summit Federal Building, and sell the property to private buyers due to the cumulative costs for repairs, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Tenants in that building at 401 W. Peachtree St. include the IRS, the Social Security Administration and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, according to the AJC.
The Department of Justice signed a lease renewal in Washington, D.C., that slashed 30% of the space from its previous full-building lease. Since January 2025, the administration has terminated 264 federal leases totaling 3.6M SF, according to a JLL tracker.
The EPA is headquartered in D.C. and also operates 10 regional offices, including in Atlanta. It has occupied space in the Sam Nunn Federal Building since 2014, according to the prospectus. The EPA's office is on the ninth through 16th floors.
The GSA said it intends to issue a solicitation for entities to offer blocks of space that can meet the parameters outlined in the prospectus. The prospectus would need to be cleared by House and Senate committees.
Emily Wishingrad and Jarred Schenke contributed to this story.
