Trump Administration Quietly Piloting New Program To Rethink Federal Offices Nationwide

The federal government’s property manager, facing pressure from President Donald Trump to cut costs and space, is quickly and quietly developing a coworking platform that could transform how and where federal employees work. 

Two coworking marketplace operators have been awarded a combined $100K to create platforms that would open some agency office doors to all government employees, creating a space-sharing scheme that would help the U.S. General Services Administration consolidate its footprint. 

“The government's objective is to start creating environments where instead of individual agencies occupying their own space with their own needs, it’s thinking more about a flex space model for the agencies where that makes sense,” said Jon Luttwak, CEO at DHC Real Estate Services, one of the firms selected to run the pilot program.

DHC Real Estate Services will focus on 6.3M SF of GSA-owned space across 89 buildings in Chicago serving roughly 48,000 government employees, according to the solicitation for services available online. 

A concurrent pilot program will cover other properties across multiple states that will be run by LiquidSpace, which has past experience working with the GSA to manage its portfolio. Records show LiquidSpace won the request for services in San Francisco, but a GSA spokesperson said the government's deal with LiquidSpace had been amended to be a multiagency and multistate solution. 

The platforms, which are effectively competing proofs of concept, were originally slated to launch on March 31. The launch date has been pushed back to late April, LiquidSpace CEO Mark Gilbreath said. 

“The expectation is that they're going to try as fast as they can to get into a smaller portfolio with higher utilization,” he said. 

A project overview available online says the government’s goal is to create a cloud-based, enterprise-wide marketplace “that allows federal agencies to efficiently manage and share existing office space while seamlessly integrating with commercial workspace options.” 

The platform would let employees reserve individual spaces and give teams and departments the ability to lock in large chunks of space or entire floors at underutilized buildings for extended periods, Luttwak said. 

The request for services also requires that the platform integrate artificial intelligence to support advanced analytics and cost optimization. It states that the pilot could eventually expand to approximately 150 federally owned and leased buildings across the U.S. 

The GSA manages a portfolio of 360M SF in real estate, roughly half of which is leased space. That role makes it a key player in the ongoing efforts of Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to slash government spending.

Trump signed an executive order on inauguration day calling all federal workers back to the office five days a week. The new policy has had a rocky rollout, with workers returning to crowded offices with too few desks and even less toilet paper. 

The administration has simultaneously moved to fire at least 120,000 federal workers, although ongoing court cases have kept some of them on the government payroll at least temporarily. 

The new platforms being separately developed by LiquidSpace and DHC Real Estate Services will facilitate the GSA’s conversion of space designated for specific agencies into coworking hubs that can be utilized by employees across the federal government. The platforms will prioritize government-owned space but, if none are available, will give users the ability to book commercial coworking space from private vendors.

DHC Real Estate Services is also partnering with online marketplace Upflex and Gospace AI, a digital space booking assistant, to deliver its solution. 

“The highest priority is going to be to leverage available federal space because that's, in essence, a free transaction for the government,” Gilbreath said. 

The platform will account for an employee’s role and agency, with more limited options for government workers who are handling sensitive information about Americans or government operations, he said. It’s not clear which federal agencies will be part of the pilot. 

The relatively low-budget pilot program has the potential to reshape where government employees work, giving them more options and mixing staff from different agencies. Luttwak said that would help the government move more quickly and creatively.

“Real innovation always happens at the edge, at the nexus between two disciplines, which is why incubators work so well,” he said.

It would also let the GSA funnel employees into higher-quality buildings in its aging portfolio, increasing utilization at those properties while making it easier to terminate leases or sell assets at spaces where maintenance has been deferred. 

GSA officials are moving quickly to roll out the initiative. The solicitation for services was published Feb. 27 with a March 3 deadline. A one-year contract for each firm officially began on March 24, according to government records. 

The solicitation for services available online received five responses. The updated overview that includes the impacted agencies isn't publicly available. 

GSA is already making significant efforts to cut its real estate footprint, although the space-saving initiatives have had major hiccups. The agency briefly posted a list on March 3 of 443 properties for potential disposition that included the headquarters of the FBI, Social Security Administration and the Department of Justice, among others.

The list was taken down the same day it was posted and replaced last week by a new list of eight properties totaling 2M SF across seven states that the GSA said are slated for accelerated disposition, although it didn’t define what that meant. 

Luttwak said the project was being managed exclusively by GSA officials, but he acknowledged that DOGE’s mandate to cut space and spending was likely a driving force behind the pilot program. 

It’s the fastest government project he’d ever been involved in, he said, adding that it was also one of the best teams he’d run across in government. 

“Every once in a while you run into people where the lights are on,” he said. “We just had a kickoff meeting and it was probably the most intelligent, thoughtful kickoff meeting I have seen in any real estate endeavor I've done in 20 years.”

UPDATE, APRIL 1, 12:00 P.M. ET: This story has been updated to incorporate a statement from the U.S. General Services Administration.