The General Services Administration (GSA) sent a memo to regional managers instructing them to begin terminating leases on all of the roughly 7,500 federal leases the agency manages nationwide, according to an Associated Press report.
The news of the memo comes amid the Trump administration’s return-to-office mandate, which would seem to suggest that office space would be needed. On the other hand, the report speculated that this may reflect the administration’s belief that it won’t need as many offices as it moves to cut federal jobs.
The GSA is an independent agency that manages property for various agencies, including procuring workplaces for more than a million federal civilian workers. It also oversees the preservation of historic buildings and manages government purchases from commercial vendors. The agency owned or leased more than 363 million square feet of space in nearly 8,400 buildings nationwide, as of fall 2024.
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AP News reported that GSA regional managers were told their goal is to terminate as many as 300 leases per day, citing an anonymous source.
Observers have been carefully watching the activity of Elon Musk, who leads President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the organization charged with identifying ways to cut government spending. Last week, Musk visited GSA headquarters in Washington, causing speculation that real estate right-sizing activity could be imminent.
GSA has already announced the termination of three leases for a savings of $1.6 million and recently appointed acting GSA administrator Stephen Ehikian announced that two of the agency’s properties will be listed for sale in a "first step" to cutting real-estate expenditures.
Musk also visited the Office of Personnel Management before the agency sent an email to federal employees outlining office work requirements and new performance standards. The email echoed one sent to Twitter employees after Musk’s 2022 takeover, according to media reports.
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Kristen Smithberg
Kristen Smithberg is a Colorado-based freelance writer who covers commercial real estate, insurance, benefits and retirement topics for BenefitsPRO and other industry publications.
