By Adam Pagnucco.
As of last night, President Donald Trump’s administration was planning to sell 83 properties with a combined 11.4 million square feet of space in Maryland. The buildings currently host several federal agency headquarters among other tenants. WBAL-TV broke this story last night.
The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has published a “non-core property list.” GSA comments:
We are identifying buildings and facilities that are not core to government operations, or non-core properties for disposal. Selling ensures that taxpayer dollars are no longer spent on vacant or underutilized federal spaces. Disposing of these assets helps eliminate costly maintenance and allows us to reinvest in high-quality work environments that support agency missions.
The list below includes properties designated for disposal. We will update it as assessments progress.
Note: I had to change this post at midnight last night because GSA’s website changed its list. This was the original list.
Among the 83 properties originally listed in Maryland, seven buildings accounted for more than a half-million square feet each. They were:
New Carrollton Fed, Lanham, 1,111,470 SF
Wash Nat Records Ct, Suitland, 838,279 SF
4600 Silver Hill – North, Suitland, 804,435 SF
4600 Silver Hill – South, Suitland, 663,838 SF
G H Fallon Fed Bldg, Baltimore, 589,182 SF
DOE Main Bldg Gtn, Germantown, 567,578 SF
Perimeter East Building, Woodlawn, 546,749 SF
One White Flint North was on the sell list. Image by Google.
The hardest hit communities included:
Woodlawn (Baltimore County): 14 properties, 2,801,362 SF (these include the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services headquarters and the Social Security headquarters)
Silver Spring (Montgomery County): 29 properties, 2,641,118 SF (these include buildings at the White Oak Federal Research Center campus and Silver Spring Metro Center 1, where NOAA is headquartered)
Suitland (Prince George’s County): 13 properties, 2,614,117 SF (these include the Washington National Records Center, the Census Bureau headquarters and NOAA’s satellite operations office)
Baltimore City: 2 properties, 724,327 SF (includes the G. H. Fallon federal building)
Germantown (Montgomery County): 8 properties, 621,394 SF (these are on the Department of Energy campus)
Bethesda/White Flint (Montgomery County): 1 property, 345,183 SF (the headquarters of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission)
As of midnight, GSA removed 62 properties from the list. All of the buildings in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties were removed. Remaining were 21 properties containing 3,825,193 square feet. They included the two buildings in Baltimore City, the Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security buildings in Woodlawn, four buildings in the Urbana Corporate Center in Frederick County and the Maude R. Toulson Federal Building in Wicomico County. These buildings remained on the sell list as of midnight.
What other changes will occur?
Here are two big questions.
First, while these properties may add to local government tax rolls if they are bought by private investors, what will they do to the real estate industry if they flood capacity as the regional economy faces a potential Trump-induced recession?
And more importantly, if these buildings are sold, what will happen to the agencies, employees and contractors who work in them?
Update: The Post has reported that the list has been taken down. However, “at Wednesday’s meeting of senior GSA officials, the [GSA] employee said, it was communicated that the plan is still to dispose of the buildings and that the effort is being paused indefinitely.”