The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) leases 194 million square feet of office, industrial and special purpose space on behalf of its tenant agencies. This space is distributed among 8,800 leases throughout the United States and its territories. Though government facilities may be found everywhere, it’s clear that the District of Columbia and a handful of states enjoy a substantially greater federal presence.
To visually demonstrate just how great the imbalance is, we created the scattergraph above (exempting U.S. territories). On one axis we plotted rentable square feet of leased space and on the other, the aggregate rent paid for that space. The first observation is that it is Virginia, not Washington, D.C., that is home to the most GSA-leased space (move your cursor over the circles in the upper right of the graph). Yet, on an aggregate rent basis D.C. reigns supreme due to it pricier real estate. Both Washington, DC and Virginia stand alone as the true locus of federal tenancy. Maryland, due to its location adjacent to Washington, D.C., also enjoys significant federal presence. California, New York, Texas and Florida contain lesser, but substantial, GSA-leased space corresponding to the fact that they are also among the nation’s most populous states. Beyond these, federal leasing thins outs substantially: 40 states have less than five million square feet of GSA-leased space, and 15 of these contain less than one million square feet.
Move your cursor over, or click on, any point in the graph above to see related data.