WASHINGTON, DC-The House of Representatives Committee onTransportation and Infrastructure has given the greenlight for several government leases, many of which are in the DCarea. These include:

• a replacement lease of up to 292,173 square feet for theJustice Department’s Office of Justice Programs,at a cost of $14.3 million for 15 years;

• a lease consolidation for the Federal Bureau ofInvestigation of up to 191,156 feet, at a cost of $6million for 20 years;

• a replacement lease of up to 87,000 square feet for theDepartment of Defense’s Defense Security CooperationAgency, valued at $3.3 million for 20 years;

• a 124,000-square-foot lease for the Consumer ProductSafety Commission, at a proposed cost of $4.3 million for15 years;

• a 327,000-foot lease for Department of Treasury’sFinancial Management Service, valued at $8.5 million forfive years.

In reality these leases and others approved by the House come aslittle surprise to the commercial real estate community,Jones Lang LaSalle broker ChrisRoth tells GlobeSt.com. “GSA had been working on theseleases for a while, and they've already been tasked to brokers.”Still, the certainty that the House approval affords is a relief.There is little danger that the leases could be derailed by thispoint, Roth says.

What is also interesting is that the House committee has begunusing a template as it approves these space needs, Roth also notes.“They all, for example, establish a better utilization rate andwarn the agency that if it doesn’t consolidate it will still haveto use that rate.”

It also mandates across the board that GSA will do the leasingfrom now on—there will be no delegation of authority. “There isn'ta lot of variance written into these approvals, which was notalways the case in the past,” Roth says.