The US General Services Administration announced Tuesday that it will seek to rid the nation of 443 federal buildings and facilities it has deemed as “ functionally obsolete ” for the US government. Forty-one of these properties are in the District of Columbia. The GSA says these “non-core” properties are mainly office spaces that the federal workforce can no longer properly use because of “decades of funding deficiencies,” the release reads. Many local and national landmarks are on the list, including the Department of Agriculture’s South Building, the James V. Forrestal Building that houses the Department of Energy, the Hubert H. Humphrey Building that houses the Department of Health and Human Services, the Frances Perkins Building that houses the Department of Labor, the J. Edgar Hoover Building, the GSA’s own headquarters, and the Old Post Office Building, which used to house the Trump International Hotel. There are also oddities, like the obsolete steam tunnels that once delivered heat to some buildings. The GSA can dispose of a property by transferring it to another federal agency, turning it into space for homeless assistance programs, negotiating a sale to a state or local government, or selling it at full market value. This announcement comes under the purview of the agency’s acting administrator, the software entrepreneur Stephen Ehikian, who in January said the agency will now be “laser focused on driving an efficient government.”
CONTINUE READING
