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GSA will likely shrink federal office space post-COVID

Codes and Standards

GSA will likely shrink federal office space post-COVID

Agency also needs to address maintenance backlog.


By Peter Fabris, Contributing Editor | November 12, 2021
modern office space

Courtesy Pixabay

The General Services Administration is likely to reduce the amount of office space the federal government uses over the next few years.

GSA’s administrator recently told a Congressional committee that 40% of its leases will expire over the next four years. That provides a chance to shift tenant agencies to properties the government owns, but maintenance is a key challenge.

Agencies could save $2 billion annually if they take advantage of the opportunity to move. GSA has saved $4.5 billion in lease costs to date through office consolidation, but many federal buildings have fallen into disrepair because of a lack of consistent funding for maintenance.

More than half of federal buildings in GSA’s portfolio are over 50 years old, and more than a quarter of them are over 75 years old. GSA needs to ensure designs of new federal buildings can be resilient to the impacts of climate change, one congressperson pointed out.

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