It is a well-accepted fact that the federal leased space market is shrinking. This is troublesome, yet for investors the real question has been whether the shrinking inventory has also made investment opportunities more scarce. The answer, unfortunately,…
Author: Kurt Stout
The Supreme Court and the Rule of Two
In mid-June of this year, the US Supreme Court issued a rare unanimous decision directed at the Department of Veterans Affairs—but that may affect all federal agencies in time as they engage with private contractors for…
Trimming Data Centers: A New Initiative Aims to Trim and Optimize Federal Computer Hives
This is the age of Big Data. Given the flood of information, it is also the age of the big data center. Most of us don’t think much about these out-of-sight, out-of-mind hives of humming computers,…
Who Really Has Leasing Authority?
Which federal agencies are authorized to lease property from the private sector? If you had asked that question of any federal official before last month, you might have drawn no more than an educated guess, if…
The GSA Market Continues to Shrink
We have written a lot on this blog about how the GSA-leased property market is getting smaller, a trend we expect to continue easily for the next few years. Yes, one day this trend may reverse itself but there are…
Sales Market Insights – Year-End 2015
Attached is our review of last year’s federally leased property sales activity. Highlights from this report include: • Consolidation of leases, multi-agency occupancy, and relocation of leases to GSA-owned buildings continues to take place; • From…
Data Center Consolidation: Getting There, But Not There Yet
In 2010, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the fiscal watchdog within the federal government, issued an order requiring that federal agencies consolidate data centers in order to save money and reduce redundancies. Twenty-four agencies,…
A GAO Report Calls for Heightened Building Security
Last August 21, federal workers in the heart of Lower Manhattan saw a terrible situation: A disturbed man with a gun entered a building in which passports were issued and immigration cases decided. He killed a…
FBI Field Office Sales Revisited
In November 2013, I published a brief analysis looking at the cap rate trend for FBI field office sales tracked from the end of the Global Financial Collapse. FBI field offices are a good subject for this…
Where the Federal Leases Are
The U.S. government leases space all across the nation–including in some pretty remote locations. Yet, the bulk of federal government tenancy can be found in just 20 markets. The map above shows the 20 largest markets for U.S.…