11 March

Washington DC: An important panel report on the United States federal real estate system was released on 11 March 2019 by the Public Buildings Reform Board. The board had been established under a law passed by the United States Congress known as the Federal Assets Sale and Transfer Act 2016. Its mandate was to identify unnecessary or underutilized buildings and properties owned by the federal government and to propose reforms for a more efficient management of federal assets. The report reviewed the structure of the federal real estate portfolio and presented recommendations to the relevant administrative authorities, particularly the General Services Administration, commonly known as GSA, which is the primary federal agency responsible for the management and maintenance of government buildings and properties across the United States.

According to the report, the federal government owns approximately 360000 buildings and related structures nationwide. Among these, around 8000 to 9000 major federal buildings are directly managed by the GSA, with a combined floor area of roughly 370 million square feet. Over time many of these buildings have aged significantly, a number of them are underutilized, and some remain entirely vacant. As a result, repairs and maintenance that were not carried out in a timely manner accumulated into a large maintenance backlog. The estimated cost of these deferred repairs and renovations was projected to reach nearly 170 billion dollars.

In light of these findings, the panel recommended that the federal government undertake a comprehensive review of its property portfolio, dispose of buildings that are unnecessary or underutilized, consolidate certain agencies into fewer facilities to improve efficiency, and reorganize the federal real estate system on stronger economic and administrative foundations. Following these recommendations, the federal government and the GSA gradually initiated several measures, including the sale or transfer of selected government properties and programs aimed at reducing the overall federal property portfolio. However, experts note that the process remains incomplete, and the large inventory of federal buildings along with the growing cost of maintenance continues to be an important subject of policy debate in the United States.