U.S. government ditching 141K sf D.C. office amid real estate pullback 

An agency of the Treasury Department is set to move out of its Southwest D.C. digs next spring after a century of occupancy — and the federal government is dropping the property after its departure.

The General Services Administration — the agency responsible for the government’s real estate — plans to dispose the Liberty Loan Building at 401 14th Street SW in Washington, D.C., the Washington Business Journal reported. The property has “outlived its useful life,” the GSA said in a press release.

The Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service has occupied the L-shaped building since 1919, when the 141,000-square-foot property was erected to house the Liberty Loans bond program after the first World War. The agency is relocating to the U.S. Mint headquarters next spring.

The building will go through the Real Property Disposition program, which typically portends a sale of a property, though it can also be transferred to another government agency. The disposal of the property is expected to save the GSA up to $15 million in upkeep costs.

The ramp to I-395 and the 14th Street Bridge runs through the building, which is across the street from Portals I, a 536,000-square-foot office property slated to be converted into a 421-unit apartment complex. Additionally, the property overlooks the Tidal Basin, home to the famed cherry blossom trees every spring.

But its quirks and location aren’t enough to keep the Bureau of the Fiscal Service in place as the GSA looks to trim down its office holdings in response to the pandemic, which sent some government workers to home offices on a quasi-permanent basis.

The GSA has been cutting leases by 20 percent to 40 percent, according to Bisnow. 

The federal government last year released a plan to dispose of 23 properties spanning 3.5 million square feet, including two properties in the nation’s capital. It will also likely dispose of the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover building as the FBI relocates to Greenbelt, Maryland.

— Holden Walter-Warner

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