The tumult facing the office property sector is impacting the U.S. government, as a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has identified widespread vacancies across federal properties.
During the first quarter of this year, the GAO surveyed 24 federal agencies with headquarters offices in Washington, D.C., and found all of them had excess vacant space — with 17 of agencies operating with offices that were at or below 25% occupancy levels.
“Underutilized office space has financial and environmental costs,” said the GAO in its report. “Federal agencies spend about $2 billion a year to operate and maintain federal office buildings regardless of the buildings’ utilization. In addition, agencies spend about $5 billion annually to lease office buildings. Any reduction in office space could reduce these costs. Office buildings also have environmental costs that could be lowered with better utilization.”
The GAO noted the federal government “owns over 500 million square feet of office space that costs billions annually. As the country emerges from the pandemic, the federal government has a unique opportunity to reconsider how much and what type of office space it needs.”
The question of getting rid of unnecessary office space was raised last week in a hearing of the U.S. House Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management Subcommittee.
“I’ve been a firm believer that if agencies aren’t using their space, they’ve got to give it up,” said the subcommittee’s chairman, Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), who added that if the agencies don’t address the question of empty offices, then “we’re going to have to help them do it – and I don’t mean help in the good way.”
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I agree with the comments above.
I own Office Bldg’s. You have to have alternative uses, if you don’t need the space.
However I do think the Federal Government should require all their employee’s to pysically work in a office, not at home. They deal with high level security items.
If they are going vacate, then they should require muncipallities to allow for redevelopment and not charge impact fee’s or building permit fee’s of any type, to help entice owners to redevelop. Muncipalities need to have common sense to help dead properties to redevelop.