This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March 4, 2011 - WASHINGTON - For decades, the seven buildings on the Hardesty Federal Complex in Kansas City were used as a U.S. Army quartermaster depot. The 18-acre property was vacated in 1999, but it took the federal government until 2007 to put it up for sale.
Nearly four years later, the property is still for sale.
The Hardesty buildings are among the 14,000 federal government structures now designated as "excess," and thousands of others -- more than 30,000 other structures, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) -- that are underused.
With the government paying billions of dollars a year to maintain those vacant or underused properties, it would seem like a no-brainer to sell them to the highest bidder. But so much red tape is involved in selling federal property -- more than 20 requirements apply -- that it often takes years to accomplish.
This week, responding to pressure from cost-conscious lawmakers who have been pressing for years to streamline those sales, the White House announced a new proposal to cut through the red tape and political considerations that have clogged the sale of excess federal real estate.
Jeffrey Zients, deputy director for management of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), said the proposal, which must be approved by Congress, would create an independent board of experts, called the Civilian Property Realignment Board, to speed the sale of unneeded properties and suggest ways to consolidate federal offices.
Emily Barocas, an associate administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA) -- which, as the federal government's landlord, manages most of the 1.2 million federal properties across the country -- told the Beacon that her agency supports the White House plan because it "will expedite and simplify the process of getting rid of unused or underutilized federal properties."
It's the same approach used by the Department of Defense's Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which has closed or consolidated scores of military installations. Under that model, the new commission would present its recommendations to Congress in a package to be voted on in an up-or-down manner, with no changes.
Zients said the system would help "cut through the red tape and politics that prevented the federal government from getting rid of unneeded real estate for far too long -- and save taxpayers upward of $15 billion over the next three years." He said the White House plans to "work with Congress to make this commonsense reform a reality."
With several Republicans as well as Democrats calling for a sell-off of unused federal properties at a time when budgets are tight, the prospects for congressional action seemed good. U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., said he supports the concept of a civilian property board to expedite the sales.
"Given our deficit, the government should sell its unused property to reduce our debt," Kirk said in a statement to the Beacon. "In 2007, the General Services Administration identified over 13 million square feet in unused, rentable space that should be sold to the private sector. A Civilian Property Realignment Board should handle these sales."
One of the most persistent Republican proponents of a sell off of unused federal property, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said through a spokeswoman Friday that he backs the concept and it should be bipartisan support.
"Any proposal to stop the billions of taxpayer dollars perpetually wasted on funding unused government-owned property is one that [Coburn] will support," said Becky Bernhardt, the deputy press secretary for Coburn.
In an email to the Beacon, Bernhardt said "the time to make effective oversight priority and make these cuts was years ago."
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., "supports the OMB proposal, as well as similar proposals introducted by Sen. Coburn in the last Congress," a spokeswoman said Friday.
Among U.S. House members likely to be involved in hearings is U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis, who is a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management.
A spokesman for Carnahan said Friday that the congressman is interested but wanted to see the details before taking a position. "It seems like a commonsense way to save taxpayers money," said spokesman Sam Drzymala. "But we want to make sure there would be no adverse impact on jobs in the St. Louis region."
Impact in St. Louis Not Yet Clear
While the White House map of underused federal properties showed that some were in the St. Louis region and elsewhere in Missouri and Illinois, GSA officials said the full list of sites would not be released until later.
In the meantime, the Hardesty complex in Kansas City offers an example of the red tape that delayed any sale. After the complex was vacated in 1999, it took until 2007 for the GSA to get federal permission to sell and then the OK from Jefferson City to be able to transfer the site to a new owner, who would be required to file an environmental cleanup plan with the state Department of Natural Resources.
But finding a buyer has proved to be difficult. "Environmental conditions at that site have made it difficult to sell or transfer," GSA spokesman Charlie Cook said in an email. "We've recently completed additional studies and are preparing to try again on a public sale."
In Missouri, the federal government owns 63 buildings -- not including post offices or active military bases -- with a total of about 10 million square feet, according to the GSA's regional office.
Of those federal properties, 48 buildings with about 6.5 million square feet of space are in the St. Louis area. The largest of those properties are the Robert A. Young federal office building and the Thomas F. Eagleton Courthouse downtown. Each has about 1 million square feet; both are fully used and would not be put up for sale. But some smaller federal properties might end up on the block. The area's largest complex of federal buildings is at 4300 Goodfellow Blvd. in north St. Louis, which houses offices of several Defense Department and Agriculture Department agencies.
Why Does It Take So Long to Sell Federal Property?
The current system has erected too many barriers to selling empty properties, the OMB says.
For one, federal agencies sometimes can't afford the short-term costs involved in selling an asset. The OMB's plan fixes that by giving the proposed board the power to manage a fund that can cover such upfront costs.
Another problem, says the OMB, is the more than 20 requirements that the GSA must meet before it can sell federal property -- no matter how smal. The process takes at least a year to dispose of any property and can waste huge sums in maintenance costs.
Politics also is involved, with local members of Congress at times using their influence to try to stop or direct a sale. An independent board, with the power to package sale recommendations and submit them to Congress without changes, would prevent political interests from slowing down or stopping property sales.
"Red tape, financial barriers, political interests -- that's why the government owns thousands of properties it doesn't need and is wasting taxpayer dollars," the OMB's Zients told reporters this week.
Under the current system, the GSA's Office of Real Property Utilization and Disposal either conveys unused federal properties to "eligible recipients for a public purpose" or sells the properties "by competitive bid to private individuals."
That system is cumbersome, and GSA's Barocas said the agency "fully supports the president's proposal for a Civilian Property Realignment Board and looks forward to working closely with the board to responsibly save taxpayer money."
Zients said creating the new board is only one step the OMB is considering to try to streamline the federal government's landlord role.
"Beyond clearing out this backlog of properties the government doesn't need, there are opportunities to make the federal government's real estate footprint smaller," Zients said. "Companies in the private sector have made significant changes in how they manage their real-estate portfolios, using strategies like telework and co-location, and leveraging the internet and other technologies. For the most part, government agencies haven't kept up and still manage their real estate portfolios the way they did in the pre-internet era."