Trump administration wants new headquarters for the Housing and Urban Development Department

The Housing and Urban Development Department and General Services Administration on Thursday announced that they will lead an initiative to identify a new HUD headquarters.

GSA, which manages federal properties, said HUD’s current headquarters — the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building in Washington, D.C. — will be added to its priority list of government facilities to sell. 

HUD and GSA said that the building, which opened in 1968, has more than $500 million in deferred maintenance and modernization needs. And, despite nearly all employees working in the office because of the virtual elimination of telework flexibility, the building is at half its total occupancy.

“HUD’s focus is on creating a workplace that reflects the values of efficiency, accountability and purpose,” said HUD Secretary Scott Turner in a statement. “We’re committed to rightsizing government operations and ensuring our facilities support a culture of optimal performance and exceptional service as we collaborate with our partners at GSA to deliver results for the American people.”

President Donald Trump has sought to relocate some agencies away from Washington, D.C., but a joint agency press release about the new headquarters said that “[w]hile the timeline and final location are still under evaluation, officials confirmed that the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area remains a top priority.”

The federal real estate portfolio’s deferred maintenance and repairs backlog reached $370 billion in fiscal 2024, which is one reason why the Government Accountability Office included property management on its high-risk list of government programs that are vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, mismanagement or are in need of transformation. The watchdog also said that agencies “have long struggled with underutilized space.”

As part of the Trump administration’s cost-cutting initiative, GSA in March announced more than 440 federal buildings for potential sale. The agency took down the list one day later, however, after receiving pushback. GSA is now taking “a more incremental approach” and lists 31 buildings for accelerated disposition. The Biden administration also worked to reduce the size of the government’s real estate portfolio. 

The Weaver Building is an example of Brutalist architecture, which is considered to be a more modern style, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its “exceptional architectural significance.” 

On the first day of his second term, Trump signed a memorandum that federal buildings should respect “classical architectural heritage.” 

Repealed executive orders

As part of a smattering of directives released late Tuesday, Trump revoked two decades-old executive orders in an effort to reshape where agencies decide to establish their office locations. 

The two orders that Trump repealed are: 

• EO 12072, signed by President Jimmy Carter, which required the federal government to first consider community business areas for meeting federal space needs in urban areas as part of an effort to "strengthen the nation’s cities and to make them attractive places to live and work.” 
• EO 13006, signed by President Bill Clinton, which directed agencies, when determining where to locate federal facilities and if “economically prudent,” to first give consideration to historic properties and historic districts for the same purpose as the Carter EO and “to provide leadership in the preservation of historic resources.” 

“Revoking these orders will restore common sense to federal office space management by freeing agencies to select cost-effective facilities and focus on successfully carrying out their missions for American taxpayers,” Trump said in his EO. 

The order goes on to assert that the Carter and Clinton-era policies “prevented agencies from relocating to lower-cost facilities” and “failed to adequately prioritize efficient and effective government service.”

But a former real estate broker for GSA told Government Executive that the community business district location requirements in EO 12072 did not often impact government leasing. 

“Trump’s executive order may cut a little red tape, but I don’t see it making a material impact on overall lease costs and rental rates,” they said. 

GSA says on its website that it manages more than 500 historic properties.