GSA chief presses appropriators to address ‘deteriorating’ federal office space

The General Services Administration is warning lawmakers that federal office buildings are falling into disrepair, as the agency deals with a multi-billion-dollar backlog of maintenance and repair projects.

GSA Administrator Edward Forst told members of the Senate Appropriations Committee last week that half of GSA’s real portfolio of buildings is in “fair” or “poor” condition.

“No private-sector landlord could survive this,” Forst told members of the financial services subcommittee. “We, as a tenant in 7,000 leased properties, would not tolerate this.”

GSA faces a $50 billion backlog in maintenance and repair projects — more than double the agency’s previous highest estimate — according to a report released in March by the Public Buildings Reform Board. Congress created the board to help GSA identify underutilized federal buildings that it should sell or offload.

The board wrote that GSA’s inventory of owned buildings “requires a radical reduction in size to become financially sustainable.” At its current funding level, the board estimates GSA’s portfolio of owned buildings would need to shrink by 80%.

GSA-owned buildings are, on average, over 50 years old, and showing their age. Forst said GSA maintains over 4,400 elevators and escalators, which tend to break down.

“When you build a building and 35 years go by, all the elevators are the identical vintage, they’re all punted at the same time, they all break at the same time, and people get stranded,” Forst said.

Forst said he gets an email every time someone is trapped in an elevator in a building that GSA oversees.

“I have an email that comes to me when there is an entrapment, because I get it every single time it happens. I want to be familiarized with it. I want to make phone calls about it. You never know who gets stuck in those elevators — security people, Cabinet Secretaries, or people just coming in to do their job. But I want to make sure that we’re on top of it. The fact that I get these notices, I think people are paying a little more attention to it,” he said.

GSA manages 40% of the federal government’s office space. Like his recent predecessors, Forst is asking Congress for full access to the Federal Buildings Fund, a pot of money that includes all rent payments GSA receives from tenant agencies.

Over the past 15 years, Congress has skimmed about $1 billion annually from the Federal Buildings Fund to cover other expenses.

Adjusted inflation, Forst said that Congress has “looted” about $22 billion from the Federal Buildings Fund that would have otherwise gone to repairing and maintaining federal buildings.

“That’s a heck of a sacrifice, when our delinquent maintenance bill approaches $50 billion. This is squandered taxpayer money, and it’s lost irreplaceable architectural heritage,” Forst said.

Forst said GSA is “dumping historic gems” in its portfolio because of its maintenance backlog. The agency recently sold the neoclassical Gus Solomon Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, for $1.8 million, “because it’s falling apart.”

GSA is asking Congress to approve a $450 million “optimization fund” that would help accelerate its disposal of underutilized federal buildings.

“Make no mistake, we are accelerating dispositions at a record pace — and these are the right decisions — but we are backed into a corner because of the delinquent maintenance,” Forst said.

The Trump administration, so far, has announced plans to sell headquarters buildings for the Agriculture Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The FBI is also moving out of its headquarters building and relocating to the nearby Ronald Reagan Building, which already provides office space for several other agencies.

The Education Department recently announced it will move out of its headquarters, the Lyndon B. Johnson building, by August and transfer employees to a building that previously held USAID employees.

The Energy Department will move out of its headquarters, the James Forrestal building, and relocate staff to the Education Department’s headquarters.

GSA also recently announced that its headquarters will undergo major renovations to move the Office of Personnel Management under its roof.

“We decided we can’t ask other people to do what we are not willing to do. So we’re going first with that, and I think it will prompt a lot more, a lot more opportunity across the federal footprint,” Forst said.

GSA data shows that none of the more than 9,700 buildings at 22 large agencies that submitted data are meeting the 60% utilization threshold under the USE IT Act.

“I think the USE IT Act has provided some great data for us about the utility of bills of different buildings, and when you shine the bright white light on it, that gives us great ammunition to take some conversations forward,” Forst said.

GSA is also looking to proceed with more minor repairs and alterations without approval from Congress. The agency needs House and Senate committees to sign off on any repairs exceeding $3.96 million. Forst said lawmakers spend 435 days, on average, to approve these repairs.

“That’s when we begin the contracting process, and then we can begin the work,” he said.

By contrast, the Empire State Building was completed in 410 days.

“A century later, we can’t replace elevators, fix a roof or update a fire safety system in that amount of time across your home states, federal facilities are deteriorating, and your constituents and your staff depend on that,” Forst said.  “What we need is Congress’s commitment to remove obstacles to sound stewardship.”

Subcommittee Chair Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) said that Congress “cannot appropriate” the amount of money GSA needs to address its maintenance backlog, adding that every $1 lawmakers appropriate for new construction today buys only about 40% of what it bought in 2021.

Hagerty, however, applauded GSA for cutting costs by eliminating underutilized office space.

“Reducing the footprint is one of the few ways GSA can reduce overall cost. Each dollar spent operating nearly empty buildings is one less dollar that could be directed to necessary repairs,” he said.

Subcommittee Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said he agreed GSA needs more funding to address its deferred maintenance backlog, but said the Trump administration’s proposal to cut nondefense spending by 10% in fiscal 2027 “will make it very, very difficult for us to address the legitimate needs of GSA, especially when the cost of construction has skyrocketed.”

“When non-defense funding is held flat or cut, as is being proposed by the president, we cannot make the kinds of investment needed at GSA,” Reed said.

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