EXCLUSIVE: The Senate’s DOGE leader is hoping to give the U.S. Treasury another boost in cutting the $36 trillion national debt, this time by selling off some major real estate in Washington, D.C., currently home to several prominent cabinet agencies.
The headquarters of the Departments of Energy, Housing & Urban Development, along with ancillary buildings home to other top agencies, would be sold off but without attrition or layoffs, as the employees therein would be relocated elsewhere, according to Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa.
The “For Sale Act” would put the James Forrestal Federal Building on the market, one of six properties identified by the Senate DOGE Caucus as ripe for removal from the federal government’s portfolio.
The imposing modernist structure, which hovers across L’Enfant Plaza as a cross between an office building and a pedestrian bridge, was once known as the “Little Pentagon” and home to overflow Department of Defense personnel during the Vietnam War.
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The Department of Energy moved in after then-President Jimmy Carter created the agency in 1977.
Several other buildings along Independence Avenue in the Federal Center section of Washington – so named for its panoply of federal offices – would hit the market as well.
Directly west of the Forrestal, one of the Agriculture Department’s outbuildings on Independence is on DOGE’s list for mandatory sale.
That building is at about one-quarter capacity and is in need of nearly $2 billion in upgrades or maintenance, Republicans said.
Ernst quipped the Agriculture building is the perfect “fixer-upper” to be on the market.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Jr. building – named for former President Lyndon Johnson’s vice president – can be seen by traffic glancing right as they exit Interstate 395’s Third Street Tunnel near the U.S. Capitol.
It houses the Department of Health and Human Services and would also be required to be put on the market within 18 months of the For Sale Act’s passage.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s headquarters is also on the list, as the curved X-shaped granite building, officially called the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building, is “underutilized,” according to DOGE’s rubric.
The Theodore Roosevelt Building, at the foot of Interstate 66 just west of the White House, along with the Frances Perkins Federal Building on the other side of the city, rounds out the list.
The legislation would also have safeguards against foreign entities buying up the buildings – as China and other rivals have purchased land by proxy very close to sensitive installations like a major Air Force base in North Dakota.
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Additionally, any entity in which a foreign national is a “beneficial owner” would be prohibited from participating in any federal real estate sales.
Taxpayers shell out about $81 million to maintain underutilized or unutilized federal offices, according to a Biden-era report to Congress from the Office of Management and Budget.
About 7,700 federal office spaces are vacant and 2,200 are majority-empty, according to a Congressional Research Service report.
Annual maintenance on 277,000 federal buildings tops $10 billion per year, according to an April Government Accountability Office report.
Ernst and DOGE previously successfully mandated the sale of the aging Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building in Federal Center. Within its 1.2 million square feet, only 72 people were working there as of 2024.
It formerly housed offices for Voice of America and the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors.
