Trump administration wants to put hundreds of government properties up for sale — including DOJ headquarters
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The Trump administration has designated the headquarters of multiple cabinet departments and federal courthouses across the country as nonessential properties that can be sold off.
A website for the General Services Administration — the agency responsible for managing the government’s office space — detailing “buildings and facilities that are not core to government operations” now includes the headquarters of the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the federal courthouse in Los Angeles, America’s second-largest city. The
The GSA also says a large swath of prime real estate near the White House, including the Office of Personnel Management’s Theodore Roosevelt Building HQ, the building used to house offices of the United States Trade Representative, the headquarters of the American Red Cross, and the Old Post Office building — a national historic landmark that was formerly leased by President Donald Trump’s eponymous real estate company for use as a hotel — are “non-core” and therefore ripe for disposal as well.
In addition, the agency has also designated it’s own headquarters, as well as the headquarters of the Department of Labor, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Transportation as unnecessary and potentially for sale.
Outside of Washington, GSA has also marked for potential sale the headquarters of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Social Security Administration in Woodlawn, Maryland, the headquarters of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Rockville, Maryland, and buildings used by the Food and Drug Administration in nearby Silver Spring, Maryland.
The Trump administration also wants to dispose of the John F Kennedy Federal Building and the Thomas P O’Neill Federal Building, both located in Boston, and the Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center in Georgia, the largest single federal building in the southeast which currently houses the Federal Railroad Administration. Federal courthouses in Florida, Georgia, and Indiana would also be up for sale under the GSA proposal.
Overall, the administration’s plan would mean the vast majority of cabinet departments and scores of other agencies would lose their own headquarters buildings and be at the mercy of private landlords and developers when it comes to finding space for their operations in the future.
A GSA spokesperson didn’t respond to a query from The Independent on whether the administration was designating the Department of Justice as a “non-core” function of the federal government, but in a statement posted to the GSA website the agency said it’s Public Buildings Service was behind the plan for selling off most of the cabinet department headquarters buildings.
“Decades of funding deficiencies have resulted in many of these buildings becoming functionally obsolete and unsuitable for use by our federal workforce. We can no longer hope that funding will emerge to resolve these longstanding issues. GSA’s decisive action to dispose of non-core assets leverages the private sector, drives improvements for our agency customers, and best serves local communities,” the agency said.
The statement also said the Public Buildings Service was considering “creative solutions, including sale-lease backs, ground leases and other forms of public/private partnerships to drive the full optimization of our space while delivering our federal employees the high quality work environments they need to fulfill their missions.”
Such plans would represent a massive wealth transfer from the government to a handful of wealthy entities capable of purchasing the buildings, then continued wealth transfers in the form of rent paid to those entities in perpetuity.
