Nearly three weeks after the General Services Administration posted a list of 443 properties planned for disposition — and then promptly took it down — the agency has put up a new slate of buildings in its place.
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The original noncore asset page, which for the past few weeks read “coming soon,” now lists eight properties that it says are slated for “accelerated disposition.” The properties across seven states total just over 2M SF.
Each of the properties had already been announced for disposition in prior slates released during the Biden administration, according to past press releases. None of the properties were part of the 443-asset list posted on March 4.
The page invites interested parties to submit nonbinding term sheets to a GSA email address and says that it will “post additional assets regularly.”
“This initiative aims to engage the market, attract interested parties, and inform strategies that will expedite the disposition of federal assets, consistent with all applicable laws,” a GSA spokesperson said in a statement to Bisnow.
On a frequently asked questions page attached to the new list, the GSA said it decided on a more “incremental approach,” focusing on a shorter list of assets that have “already been evaluated.”
“Due to the overwhelming response that we received after publishing the first list, we are refining our process,” the page says.
The GSA didn't give any indication as to what it means by an “accelerated timeline.” In its FAQ answer about how fast the buildings could sell, it details the GSA’s typical disposition process: offer an asset for use by any federal agency, and if it is still considered unneeded, dispose of it through a public benefit conveyance, negotiated sale or public sale.
For the eight properties on the accelerated disposition list, the GSA said it has notified the agencies housed in them.
The original list of 443 properties nationwide, which went up the evening of March 3 and was taken down by the following morning, came as a surprise to many in the real estate industry and the federal government.
Included in the list were iconic headquarters buildings in the nation’s capital like the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Justice, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the FBI and the Department of Labor.
Even members of Congress who sit on the House subcommittee that oversees federal real estate said they were surprised to have received no prior warning about the disposition list, learning about it for the first time from media reports.
The federal government has been focused on trimming its real estate holdings for more than a decade, including through programs like “Freeze the Footprint” and “Reduce the Footprint” during the Obama years.
The Public Buildings Reform Board, a body created by Congress in 2016 to advise the federal government on rightsizing its footprint, is separately working on its next round of recommendations.
The board has already recommended two rounds of dispositions totaling $775M, and it is required to make at least one more round of recommendations before the end of 2026. PBRB member David Winstead said at a House committee hearing earlier this month that it is assessing 50 assets for its next round of dispositions in cities like D.C., Miami, Los Angeles, Austin and Atlanta, which could save $18B over 30 years.
Here are the properties identified for “accelerated disposition” and their square footage:
4700 River Road, Riverdale Park, Maryland — 295K SF
Social Security Trust Fund Building, Bridgeton, New Jersey — 11K SF
William O. Lipinski Federal Building, Chicago — 353K SF
8930 Ward Parkway, Kansas City, Missouri — 193K SF
San Antonio Federal Building West, San Antonio — 163K SF
La Branch Federal Building, Houston — 76K SF
Peachtree Summit Federal Building, Atlanta — 804K SF
Joe L. Evins Federal Building, Oak Ridge, Tennessee — 146K SF
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