The federal government is looking for a new headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, for the National Science Foundation that would cut the agency’s footprint to less than half its prior size.
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The Trump administration announced in June that the NSF’s headquarters at 2451 Eisenhower Ave. would be taken over by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and it would be looking for a new home for the research funding agency.
The government is now looking for that alternative space for the NSF in Alexandria, in the same neighborhood as its current headquarters, according to a presolicitation notice posted Friday to its procurement website.
The General Services Administration is seeking between 240K SF and 280K SF for the agency for a 48-month lease, according to the notice. Its Eisenhower Avenue headquarters, where it has been since 2017, is 661K SF.
The NSF has more than 1,800 employees working at the headquarters.
A spokesperson for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 1,000 NSF employees, said in a statement to Bisnow that the “NSF is acting in secrecy, apparently rushing to move the agency to another building in November under a short lease of 48 months.”
“The square footage being sought indicates that the administration does not plan to staff NSF to the levels needed and that they may have other plans for the agency that neither the public nor Congress knows about,” the spokesperson said.
The National Science Foundation declined to comment, and the GSA didn't respond to a request for comment.
The presolicitation also requires that the space be contiguous, furnished and ready for “immediate” and full occupancy by the end of November. It also says it must be within half a mile of a Metro station. And it gives street perimeters within which the headquarters must be located, which limits the search to Alexandria's Eisenhower East submarket.
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While the presolicitation is advertised as a search for private landlords that meet the qualifications rather than a request for proposals, the notice says that it could result in the government choosing to proceed with a “sole source action.”
“This market research is aligned with GSA’s ongoing efforts — consistent with the Trump Administration’s agenda — to right-size the federal real estate portfolio by reducing the government’s physical footprint, consolidating where feasible, and avoiding long-term costs to taxpayers,” the solicitation says.
Expressions of interest are due on Sept. 4. The GSA expects that it will conduct its market survey that month and that initial offers will be due in October.
At the June announcement, Public Buildings Service Commissioner Michael Peters, who has since departed the GSA, said that it would work with the NSF to look for a new headquarters, including “dusting off” some of the options it presented to HUD in its search for a new headquarters.
A potential option within the delineated boundary lines are two buildings on Dulany Street formerly occupied by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The agency vacated the buildings when it downsized from 2.4M SF to 1.6M SF for its 2024 lease, which runs through 2029.
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