Maintenance isn’t the only thing holding back the federal government’s desired downsizing of its real estate portfolio.
The Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building at 330 Independence Avenue SW may no longer be on the chopping block to be sold, the Washington Business Journal reported. The revelation came courtesy of a senior official at the General Services Administration, which manages the government’s real estate portfolio.
On Thursday, Rich Butterworth expressed concern over the infrastructure connections the Cohen Building shares with the adjacent Mary E. Switzer Memorial Federal Building, which the GSA doesn’t appear interested in selling. Butterworth said it could be prohibitively expensive to separate the interconnected infrastructure.
“While a lot of people would like to see this building disposed of — and given its underutilization rate, we understand why — our thought is, unless we can solve that problem, that might be a building that’s better reinvested in and get back to a utilization rate that would make sense and justify the level of investment,” Butterworth stated.
Congress would need to intervene to prevent a sale of the property due to a measure passed during Joe Biden’s presidency to offload the property within two years of the last federal agency departure from the building. The U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees Voice of America, has long planned to relocate as Donald Trump’s administration dismantles the agency.
The GSA, for its part, is not ready to give up on any future sale.
“The congressional directive to sell the building remains in place, and GSA is committed to managing the process responsibly and in a manner that serves the best interests of taxpayers,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
It’s the latest possible blow to the GSA’s efforts to downsize the federal government real estate portfolio, which dates back to the early days of Trump’s second term.
The agency recently determined the portfolio requires $25.8 billion in repairs. The derelict state of many of the properties are inhibiting the government’s ability to sell them.
The federal government revealed a disposition list last March of 443 “non-core” assets, totaling nearly 80 million square feet of rentable space across 47 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The list, which included the Cohen Building, quickly drew controversy and was rescinded.
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