On December 27, 2019, the five-person Public Buildings Reform Board (PBRB) presented a report to the Office of Management and Budget that identifies a dozen federal properties that, it urges, should be sold. Guided by the…
Category: Dispositions
What to Watch for in Trump’s Infrastructure Plan
Last week, the Trump administration revealed its proposed 2019 budget and a companion proposal, the Legislative Outline for Rebuilding Infrastructure in America. Together, these proposals describe the president’s much-anticipated infrastructure plan. The centerpiece of the plan is…
VA and the Problem of Old Properties
A century and a half ago, after the Civil War had ended, the federal government began an ambitious program of building national hospitals for wounded veterans—a few at first, and then, as those veterans became elderly,…
The Federal Assets Sale and Transfer Act
Near the end of his Administration, on December 16, 2016, President Barack Obama made a Republican politician very happy. Jeff Denham, first elected to Congress from California’s 19th District and reelected three times from the redrawn…
Doing Dispositions FASTer
When ordinary citizens find themselves with too much stuff, they have a garage or yard sale—even call in a clutter consultant, which explains why organizing maven Marie Kondo is in such high demand these days. But…
Are Federal Agencies “Hiding” Surplus Buildings?
A recent (March 21) decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in a 25-year-old lawsuit against the government found that many federal agencies have been inaccurately reporting the number of unused properties…
USPS Speeds Up Plant Closings
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is accelerating its plans to consolidate mail processing plants, adding dozens of those originally scheduled to be closed in 2014 to the list of facilities already set to be shuttered this…
Looking Back on BRAC: Redeveloping the Former Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C.
From 1909 through mid-2011, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC, originally known as the Walter Reed General Hospital) was the U.S. Army’s flagship medical center. Located on a 110-acre site in Upper Northwest Washington, D.C.,…
Mica Holds Another Field Hearing in Miami
Continuing his examination of underperforming and vacant federal real estate, last Friday (March 8) Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) held the first field hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Government Operations Subcommittee at Miami…
Mica Holds First Hearing of House Subcommittee on Government Operations
As we reported last month, although Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) had to resign as chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee because of term limits set by House Republican leaders, a reorganization of the House…