By Ryan Hanrahan
Reuters’ Karl Plume reported that “the U.S. Department of Agriculture is selling its flagship South Building office hub on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and relocating employees to other locations across the country by the end of the year, the agency said on Wednesday.”
“The move to vacate and sell the massive but aging building is part of a broader cost-cutting initiative at the department, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said, citing high maintenance costs and low occupancy,” Plume reported. “‘At one time, the South Building was the beating heart of USDA, alive with research and teeming with activity decades ago. But today, it is a shell of what it once was,’ Rollins said at a press conference outside the building on Wednesday.”
“The building will be turned over to the government’s General Services Administration for sale, Rollins said as Iowa Senator Joni Ernst unveiled a ‘For Sale By Owner’ sign,” Plume reported. “The flagship USDA property, built in the U.S. capital in the 1930s, has $1.6 billion in delinquent maintenance costs while about 80% of its offices are vacant, GSA Administrator Edward Forst said.”
Federal News Network’s Jory Heckman reported that Deputy Secretary Stephen “Vaden said USDA is also moving Food and Nutrition Service employees out of their leased office space in Alexandria.”
“USDA will return that leased office space to GSA, and FNS employees will be relocated to buildings that currently house the Forest Service and the Agricultural Research Service,” Heckman reported. “Vaden said FNS staff have complained about the building for years, and he saw the state of the building when he attended a Christmas party there last year.”
Source : illinois.edu