Dive Brief:
- The government is looking to unload approximately $8 billion of its vacant and outdated federal buildings, and the House has approved legislation meant to speed up the process, according to the Engineering News-Record.
- The House passed two bills — one that creates a federal agency tasked with recommending buildings to sell, and the other creating a pilot program to accelerate federal leases. However, the latter imposes certain limitations on dramatically changing the size of federal buildings during construction.
- Trade associations like the Associated General Contractors of America and the National Electrical Contractors Association called such a sell-off and subsequent conversion of the facilities a "real opportunity" for building contractors on par with what the highway bill meant for transportation contractors.
Dive Insight:
Although the current estimate of total sales is $8 billion, Brian Turmail of the AGC told the ENR that the dollar volume of construction would far exceed that figure. The ENR reported that the government's existing building stock most likely to be sold off would be turned into both residential and commercial buildings as well as warehouses.
The bill that would create a Public Buildings Reform Board also requires the General Services Administration to maintain a database of all federal properties, whether they're being considered for sale or not. This real estate management policy is a progression from the Office of Management and Budget's 2015 "Reduce the Footprint" initiative that requires federal agencies to reduce the total square footage of their real estate holdings starting in 2016.
A Senate bill is also in the works that would mandate federal agencies to take inventory and maintain a list of their owned real estate, but there have been no votes on that legislation yet.
If this measure has the same impact for building contractors as the highway bill had for infrastructure companies, it could have major implications for the industry. The $305 billion, five-year highway bill was passed in December after months of stopgap measures and provided much-needed funds for contractors unsure of whether their projects would receive funding.