The Trump administration’s list of federal properties that could be offered for sale quickly shrank from 443 to 320 in the span of hours Tuesday, as the General Services Administration pulled some iconic buildings – including some agency headquarters – from the website.
Buildings housing the departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Justice, Labor and Veterans Affairs were all taken off the list. The headquarters for the Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Office of Personnel Management were also removed.
Also withdrawn was a group of buildings in northern Virginia that doesn’t officially appear on the federal property rolls but has long been associated with the Central Intelligence Agency.
A GSA spokesman didn’t immediately offer comments on why more than a quarter of the buildings were no longer being considered for sale. Bloomberg News first reported on the contents of the list Tuesday.
Most of the properties removed from the inventory of “non-core” real estate assets were located in the Washington, DC area, which is struggling with office vacancies.
The effort to sell off federal real estate is part of President Donald Trump’s attempt to dramatically reduce the number of federal employees – and the need for office space. But the plan has been met with pushback from Democrats, who said that the sale of federal buildings could hurt small businesses, as well as veterans, Social Security recipients and others who rely on in-person service from federal agencies.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said Trump and his billionaire adviser, Elon Musk, were trying to “dismantle our government, piece by piece, and sell it for parts.”
The 123 properties removed from the list also included a Suitland, Maryland facility that controls weather satellites for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – the kind of specialized facility that the administration said it would seek to avoid selling given how critical it is to operations.
In Silver Spring, Maryland, the Trump administration is no longer listing the 3.1 million-square-foot (288,000-square-meter) campus of the Food and Drug Administration, including 10 office and four laboratory buildings.