The General Services Administration is preparing to terminate about 1,000 federal real estate leases by the end of this week, a significant portion of its real estate portfolio.
According to figures cited by the Department of Government Efficiency, there are more than 7,500 leases in the federal real estate portfolio. GSA’s reduction plans would eliminate about 13% of the lease portfolio.
Federal News Network spoke to four sources familiar with the situation at GSA, who requested anonymity to avoid retaliation. One source said it appears that 1,000 of the soon-to-be-terminated leases are in their “soft term.”
GSA often signs five-year leases, with the option of renewing for another five years. The agency is looking to terminate leases that have reached the initial five-year threshold.
The source told Federal News Network that in some cases, agencies “are not fully aware that their buildings are on the list.”
“We’ve already had lessors and agencies reaching out asking why they have DocuSign docs telling them the GSA is terminating. Sounds like zero communication to agencies or landlords took place,” the source said.
GSA is exempting leases from a variety of agencies and components — including the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, State, the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency, U.S. Marshals Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Social Security Administration, intelligence community and the Executive Office of the President.
Michael Peters, the commissioner of the Public Buildings Service, is calling for a 50% reduction of federal building space — both owned and leased.
GSA is cutting office space for other federal agencies at the same time the Trump administration is calling for all federal employees to return to the office full time.
At a meeting of the Public Buildings Reform Board last month, Peters acknowledged concerns over whether some agencies will have enough office space to accommodate all their employees on a full-time basis.
“That’s the $64,000 question, right? It’s how many people are coming back, and when are they coming back,” Peters said on Jan. 28. “Comprehensive assessment is underway, not just here in the District, but really across the nation to understand where we have deficiencies or where we expect to have deficiencies, and to ascertain how to address them. We don’t have a firm kind of guidance at this point in time, but we recognize that there is a potential problem.”
Federal News Network has reached out to GSA for comment.
GSA is also preparing for a major reduction of its headcount through a nonvoluntary Reduction in Force that’s happening governmentwide.
According to one GSA employee, agency leadership estimates that up to 60% of GSA’s total workforce could be eliminated.
GSA officials told some employees to prepare for a RIF that will eliminate entire groups or work functions.
“No consideration for veteran or seniority status,” a second GSA said. “Everyone is same status per this RIF.”
GSA employees expect that a mass reduction in headcount will have a ripple effect throughout the federal government.
GSA provides IT, real estate and contracting services for the rest of the federal government. It receives some funding from Congress each year, but is partially funded through fees it charges other agencies.
The second GSA employee said certain offices within the agency are preparing plans to contact customer agencies once they close down.
While the RIF will be felt across the entire agency, GSA’s Public Buildings Service, which manages federal real estate on behalf of other agencies, is expected to bear the brunt of these cuts.
According to a third GSA employee, agency leaders are looking to bring the Public Buildings Service from 5,600 to 1,200 total. That estimate tracks with what Federal News Network has already reported.
Federal News Network reported earlier this week that PBS is looking to eliminate 3,557 positions through the RIF — about 63% of its total workforce — and that another 725 PBS employees accepted the Office of Personnel Management’s “deferred resignation” offer — a nearly 13% reduction of its headcount.
GSA Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian told staff in an email on Monday that the first phase of GSA employees who took the deferred resignation offer have been placed on administrative leave “to begin their next chapter.” PBS accounts for about 40% of GSA’s total workforce of about 13,000 employees.
A senior PBS official told employees in an email earlier this week that personnel cuts should be phased, “to ensure assets can be disposed, agencies can Return to the Office and space is Optimized.”
The senior PBS official said GSA leaders plan on rolling out new technology, including artificial intelligence, “to improve efficiencies in the lease, acquisition and project management and project management functions.”
GSA set March 3 as its deadline for employees to return to the office full-time. However, the second GSA employee told Federal News Network that the agency has now staggered its return-to-office deadlines.
According to the first GSA employee, only about 5,400 employees received a duty station to report to by March 3.
“The rest of us are set between May and September, assuming we aren’t RIF’d,” the employee said.
About 2,000 GSA employees — more than 15% of its workforce — live more than 50 miles from the nearest GSA regional office.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes happening in the federal government, please email [email protected] or reach out on Signal at: JHeckman.29
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