The General Service Administration’s (GSA) Public Buildings Service announced on Tuesday they’ve picked six federally-owned properties in Alabama to possibly sell.
According to GSA, the agency has identified certain core federally-owned assets within its portfolio that are needed for critical government operations, such as: courthouses, land ports of entry, and facilities critical to our national defense and law enforcement. These core assets are “intrinsically significant to the mission of the federal government and will be retained for long-term needs,” according to GSA.
According to GSA, selling ensures taxpayer dollars are no longer spent on vacant or underutilized federal spaces. Disposing of these assets helps eliminate costly maintenance and allows us to reinvest in high-quality work environments that support agency missions.
Some of the buildings possibly being disposed or sold includes the Montgomery Bus Station, G.W. Andrews Federal Building in Opelika, and other federal buildings in Mobile and Dothan.
According to GSA, the five properties up for disposal are:
According to GSA, federally-owned assets in GSA’s portfolio that are not core to government operations primarily consist of office space. GSA currently owns and maintains over 440 non-core assets comprising almost 80 million rentable square feet across the nation and representing over $8.3 billion in recapitalization needs. GSA blamed “decades of funding deficiencies that have resulted in many of these buildings becoming functionally obsolete and unsuitable for use by our federal workforce.”
“We can no longer hope that funding will emerge to resolve these longstanding issues. GSA’s decisive action to dispose of non-core assets leverages the private sector, drives improvements for our agency customers, and best serves local communities,” a GSA spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday. “GSA will consider non-core assets for divestment from government ownership in an orderly fashion to ensure taxpayers no longer pay for empty and underutilized federal office space, or the significant maintenance costs associated with long-term building ownership — potentially saving more than $430 million in annual operating costs.”
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