WASHINGTON, DC—On Monday the General Services Administration announced it has identified 19 buildings across the country into which it will encourage federal agencies to consolidate. The initiative is a long-standing goal of GSA's, Kurt Stout, executive vice president of the Colliers Government Solutions' national practice group, tells GlobeSt.com.

"This reflects a line of think that has been growing at the GSA for years," he says, "which is that GSA as a fundamental duty to reduce the real estate costs of the federal government and one key way to do so is to consolidate into their owned space, which they view as cheaper than leased space."

Local landlords perhaps used to hearing such vows from GSA in the past-with little changing on the ground-should not be sanguine about this latest pronouncement though. Stout says in the past GSA has been constrained by a tight budget and found it difficult to get such projects to get off the ground.

As Stout wrote in a blog post earlier this year, "despite the agency's stated goal of reducing reliance on 'costly leasing' there has been little funding available for upgrade of federal buildings to accommodate additional tenancy."

Instead, in the last few years in particular, it has been focusing on short-term renewals in leased space and getting the best deals from the landlords.

Now, though, with the latest budget, the agency has some wiggle room to launch more ambitious cost saving projects, Stout says.

The good news for commercial real estate landlords is that the list isn't concentrated in one city or region, such as the Northeast or Washington, DC, although both have been targeted on the list, JLL's Chris Roth tells GlobeSt.com.

Clearly this is fortunate for Washington DC because up until now much of GSA's consolidation push has been aimed at the Nation's Capitol, he says.

From a taxpayer's perspective, of course, the move is a good one and Roth says the numbers offered by GSA on Monday pencil in. "They seem to be aiming for a four-year payback period, which is good."  Just as clearly, though, there will be losers as well, namely owners of office buildings that are located close to GSA' targeted list, Roth says. "Some landlords won't get renewals going forward, that is obvious."