GSA Says It's Reviewing, Updating List Of 'Non-Core' Assets For Potential Disposition

As it aggressively looks to terminate office leases, the Trump administration is also pushing to sell a huge chunk of the properties it owns, including several agency headquarters.

The General Services Administration, which acts as the federal government’s real estate arm, announced Tuesday that it had identified 443 properties across the country that it could dispose of, the vast majority of which are office buildings. 

As of Wednesday morning, that list was no longer on the GSA’s website. The page is now titled “Non-core property list (Coming soon).” 

In a statement Wednesday afternoon, a GSA spokesperson said it received an “overwhelming amount of interest” after publishing the list, and it plans to republish it soon. It also clarified that a building's inclusion on the list doesn't mean it is immediately for sale, but the government will consider “compelling offers.”

“We anticipate the list will be republished in the near future after we evaluate this initial input and determine how we can make it easier for stakeholders to understand the nuances of the assets listed,” the spokesperson said. 

The “non-core property list,” when it was posted, spanned 47 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico and ranged from properties that are a few thousand square feet to more than 2M SF. 

Some giant headquarters buildings in and around the nation’s capital were on the list, including the headquarters of the FBI, Social Security Administration, Census Bureau, Department of Agriculture and the Department of Justice.

The GSA estimated it would need to spend $8.3B to maintain the properties going forward. Divesting these properties could save the federal government more than $430M in annual operating costs, it said. 

“Decades of funding deficiencies have resulted in many of these buildings becoming functionally obsolete and unsuitable for use by our federal workforce,” the GSA said in its release. “We can no longer hope that funding will emerge to resolve these longstanding issues.” 

The GSA operates about 360M SF of federal real estate, a portfolio that is half owned and half leased. 

The government can dispose of buildings by either conveying them for a public good, negotiating the sale to a local government or state, or conducting a public sale. It plans to retain “core assets,” like courthouses, land ports of entry and facilities for national defense and law enforcement.

It has 10 properties listed on its public auction website, and last month it sold the historic Webster School in downtown D.C. for $4M.

The GSA has announced multiple slates of properties that it plans to dispose of over the past year and a half, but the size of those disposition initiatives are just a fraction of the new list published by the GSA on Tuesday. Some of the buildings the GSA has already identified for disposal, including the Brickell Plaza Building in Miami, are on the agency's new noncore list.

Former GSA officials said at a Bisnow event in December that they would like to see the government dispose of more owned buildings and relocate agencies to vacant office space where it can get favorable lease deals.

“Now it’s time to call into question what are you going to do. You have stock of aging federal buildings that are highly underutilized, and each one is going to cost $300M to $500M to renovate,” Norman Dong, a partner at FD Stonewater who served as Public Buildings Service commissioner in the Obama administration, said at the event. “At the same time, you have this excess of inventory in the market for commercial real estate space that is more suited to meet a modern office requirement.”

The government has long been focused on trimming its real estate holdings. Congress created the Public Buildings Reform Board with a law passed in 2016 to trim its portfolio of owned space.

That body has already recommended two rounds of dispositions totaling $775M and is required to make at least one more round of recommendations before the end of 2026.

As it looks to sell off office properties it owns, the GSA is also aggressively reducing the buildings it leases. The Department of Government Efficiency, created by Elon Musk and empowered by President Donald Trump to cut spending, has identified 748 leases spanning 9.6M SF it plans to terminate.

The government is also requiring that all federal workers report to office space full time, a mandate that risks clashing with its space-slashing campaign. PBS Commissioner Michael Peters said at a PBRB meeting in January that a “comprehensive assessment is underway” of agencies' space needs, “but we recognize that there is a potential problem,” Federal News Network reported. 

UPDATE, MARCH 5, 8:45 A.M. ET: This story was updated after the GSA removed the list of “non-core” properties from its website.

UPDATE, MARCH 5, 2:55 P.M. ET: This story has been updated with a statement from the GSA on its removal of the list.