Which federal agency’s headquarters is housed in a structure whose cornerstone was laid with the same silver trowel that President George Washington used to lay the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol in 1793? Since 1938, the…
Category: Agencies
Federal Building Bracket Challenge 2012
In true March Madness style, the GSA is hosting its Federal Building Bracket Challenge 2012, a showdown among sixteen of the most distinctive federal buildings in the United States. The challenge competes the best of the…
Extreme Leasing: The Largest GSA Lease
“Extreme Leasing” is a periodic feature profiling the biggest, smallest, highest, oldest, newest and other extremes in the government lease inventory. The largest GSA lease in the United States can be found in Alexandria, VA. It…
Spotlight: PTO
The mission of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) is to foster innovation and competitiveness by providing high-quality and timely examination of patent and trademark applications, guiding domestic and international intellectual property (IP) policy, and delivering IP…
Spotlight: The U.S. Intelligence Community
Quick, count up every U.S. intelligence organization. Did you get to 17? Probably not; but don’t worry because few people do. You knew the U.S. intelligence community is vast but did you have any idea that…
Why DoD Must Modify Its Security Standards
The Department of Defense (DoD) published its “DoD Minimum Antiterrorism Standards for Buildings” as part of its “Unified Facilities Criteria” in October 2003. Throughout the Defense community these are often referred to as the Anti-Terrorism /…
National Science Foundation Renewal Looks Even More Likely
Watching the National Science Foundation shuffle in the starting blocks, most of the Northern Virginia real estate community has expressed certainty that, especially in this budget environment, NSF is unlikely to be moving from its present…
DoD is Evaluating Changes to its Facility Security Standards
In written testimony on March 7th before the House, Dr. Dorothy Robyn, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Installations and Environment, confirmed that DoD has embarked upon a formal initiative to review the Department’s anti-terrorism/force protection (ATFP)…
USPS Closing, Consolidating More Facilities
Facing a projected budget deficit of more than $14 billion, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) announced last month (on February 23) that it will slash the size of its mail processing network by almost half. Of…
GSA’s Revised Energy Star Policy
One of GSA’s unique challenges is that it must adapt its leases to accommodate a vast array of laws, executive orders, federal regulations and other agencies’ policies. That’s a hard thing to do and it’s made…