GSA Signs Lease To Move NSF Headquarters To Another Alexandria Building

The National Science Foundation, which is preparing to vacate its custom-built Alexandria headquarters to make way for another federal agency, has found a new home not too far away.

The NSF’s 1,600 employees will relocate less than a mile away to backfill a portion of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Dulaney Street headquarters, the General Services Administration announced Friday. 

“This relocation reflects President [Donald] Trump’s commitment to delivering results for the American people through smart government and responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources,” GSA acting Administrator Michael Rigas said in a statement.

The move reflects a resumption in dealmaking for GSA, the government's real estate arm that was forced to pump the brakes on new leasing activity during the 43-day shutdown that ended last week. 

The release didn’t reveal the size of the lease, but a presolicitation it put out in August sought a space between 240K SF and 280K SF, Bisnow first reported. 

The agency will be at 41 Dulaney St., colocated with the USPTO, which still has a 1.6M SF presence at the LCOR-owned complex. For its 2024 lease, USPTO cut its footprint from its previous 2.4M SF. That lease runs through 2029.

Brian Stone, who the release said is “performing the duties of NSF director,” called the relocation a “responsible use of federal facilities” and said the plan to colocate the agency with the USPTO would “strengthen both of our abilities to translate discoveries to innovation.” 

The August presolicitation seeking new space for the NSF came two months after the GSA announced that the Department of Housing and Urban Development would be taking over the NSF’s 661K SF headquarters at 2451 Eisenhower Ave. 

That move sparked opposition from the American Federation of Government Employees, a union that represents more than 1,000 NSF workers and said in August they are “are being displaced with no plan, no communication, and no respect.” 

The August solicitation confined the parameters of the headquarters search to Alexandria's Eisenhower East submarket and said it was looking for contiguous space within a single building or colocated with a “complementary federal agency.” 

The GSA also said it was seeking furnished space that would be ready for “immediate” and full occupancy by the end of November and that was within half a mile of a Metro station. 

Those requirements suggested that the GSA was already considering the Dulaney Street space with the USPTO. 

In Friday's release, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin thanked the GSA and NSF leadership for “trusting” Virginia to keep its mission and the NSF’s employees in the state.

The release didn't give a timeline for the move but said the GSA would work with NSF to design and build out the space and HUD would occupy its new headquarters “in the near future.”