GSA Leasing and Contracting to Get a Hard Look from Norton Subcommittee (6/5/08)
GSA Leasing and Contracting to Get a Hard Look from Norton Subcommittee
June 5, 2008
Washington, D.C. î º Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), chair of the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management, will hold a hearing entitled, "Making the GSA Lease & Construction Process Efficient, Transparent, and User-friendly," to respond to years of frustration with a process that Norton says needs top-to-bottom investigation improvements. The hearing, which will take place on Friday, June 6 at 10:30 AM, in Room 2167 of the Rayburn House Office Building, will examine the processes and costs associated with the U.S. General Services Administration's (GSA) leasing and construction. The federal government is the nation's major procurer of leased space, with 700,000 federal employees at leased sites. Approximately 640,000 employees work in government owned space.
"The high stakes for government and private sectors alike demand the best cost and process efficiency we can achieve. Taxpayers require no less, particularly in this budget-scare climate. Fairness also is due to those who incur the considerable risks and costs associated with steep, costly federal requirements for competition in order to obtain coveted federal leases and construction contracts." Norton's first hearing of the 110th Congress as chair began this investigation with a hearing held on site in NOMA (the North of Massachusetts Avenue area) on the conduct of federal agencies in manipulating GSA location requirements in order to lease in central downtown areas, where leases are more costly, while avoiding class A new space in centrally located areas, such as NOMA and the M Street, SE area, where "The Yards" development of an entire neighborhood is in progress.
The result of the NOMA hearing was the addition of important language to every GSA prospectus that requires the GSA to notify Norton's subcommittee if any changes are to be made to the area designated in the prospectus. This language was designed to keep federal agencies from dictating where they will be located based on personal preferences and regardless of cost, once a fair competition has occurred and enforces the original intent of Executive Order 12072 that requires GSA to give serious consideration to the impact that site selection has on social, economic, environmental, and cultural conditions of the communities in the urban area. Norton will ask developers to critique the new provision and its effects as well as other parts of GSA leasing and construction process. Witnesses scheduled to testify before the subcommittee include: David Winstead, GSA, PBS commissioner; Art Turowski, former GSA leasing official, currently senior official at Jones Lang LaSalle; Gail H. Seekins, Senior Property Manager, Akridge, Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) International; and Ken Grunley, President, Grunley Construction.