During the first half of this year Congress has hosted a number of hearings, both on Capitol Hill and in various cities across the United States, that provide a clear view of its objectives regarding federal real estate. All of…
Tag: Federal Leases
The Key Sustainable Products Initiative
Is your bathroom tissue squeezably soft? Does your soap leave your hands germ-free? Advertisers lie awake at night worrying about whether consumers are worrying sufficiently about such things. And as for the federal government—well, officials there…
Non-Cancelable GSA Leases Are Now Even Scarcer
Despite increasing congressional pressure to improve the number of long, firm-term leases, GSA and its tenant agencies have proven that they are not yet serious about weaning themselves from their addiction to termination rights. As measured from the leasing peak…
Making Sense of Cap Rates for GSA Properties
One of the most important (and perplexing) concepts we run into on a daily basis in the GSA property marketplace is the concept of “cap rate.” The cap rate has long been used as a benchmark…
GSA Occupancy of New Buildings Has Dwindled
Long-time participants in the federal sector have clearly sensed that the volume of new lease-construct (i.e. build-to-suit) projects has declined substantially in recent years and that the government has been engaged in a spirited game of kick-the-can, leading to…
Freeze. Measure. Reduce: New Steps for Downsizing Federal Real Estate
In 2012, the Obama administration’s Freeze the Footprint policy order mandated that the federal government reduce its real estate footprint and curb its accumulation of unused or underused properties. The following year, the Office of Management…
How the Murrah Building Bombing Changed Federal Facilities Security
Twenty years ago, on April 19th, 1995, Timothy McVeigh parked a rented Ryder truck at the curb, directly in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. In the back of that truck was a…
An Executive Order Mandates Energy Savings
It’s hardly news that the largest single consumer of energy in the United States is the federal government, with its stock of 360,000 buildings and 650,000 fleet vehicles. What is surprising, though, is the extent to…
The Pareto Principle and Federal Property Investment
In 1906, Vilfredo Pareto observed that 80% of Italy’s land was owned by 20% of its population. Eventually this observation was memorialized as the Pareto Principle or, more commonly, and applied to describe many phenomena, such as where 80% of a…
The Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act—Redux
In the 113th Congress last year, Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Senator Rob Portman (R-OR) introduced the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act, S. 2262, a 136-page bill intended to update previous legislation on energy efficiency…