Weekend Interview: New GSA Real Estate Head Elliot Doomes On Managing The Government's Portfolio

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Elliot Doomes is no stranger to managing the federal real estate footprint. He has spent nearly his entire career behind the scenes, making crucial decisions about where and how the government uses space. 

But as of last month, he has a new role: the lead official overseeing the government’s more than 350M SF portfolio and the 5,800 employees who manage it. Doomes took over as the commissioner of the General Services Administration's Public Buildings Service on Oct. 13 after overseeing the GSA's D.C.-area footprint since January. He replaced Nina Albert, who moved to head D.C.'s real estate efforts as the city's deputy mayor for planning and economic development.

Doomes comes to the role as the GSA navigates seismic shifts to its leased and owned portfolio — and the clock is ticking on making those decisions. 

Nearly half of all federal leases expire within the next five years, and the agency is under more pressure than ever to shed extraneous space after the pandemic-induced shift to remote work. In response, the GSA has been moving to reduce large chunks of federal office space, most recently from agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, the National Labor Relations Board and the Department of Justice.

Meanwhile, the agency on Wednesday announced one of its biggest decisions in years, selecting Greenbelt, Maryland, for the new FBI headquarters, putting an end to a selection process that spanned over a decade and three presidential administrations. But the news may just be the beginning of a brewing battle between the FBI — whose director, Christopher Wray, reportedly accused the agency of ignoring its panel’s advice to locate the facility in Springfield, Virginia — and the GSA. 

Bisnow interviewed Doomes on Tuesday, before the FBI announcement, and while he declined to comment on the selection, GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan released a statement Wednesday calling it an "important milestone," followed by another statement Thursday pushing back against Wray's comments and defending the GSA's process. 

Doomes did touch on part of the plan for the FBI, saying the agency is still working to find a location in D.C. for up to 1,000 staff that will need to remain close to the White House, the Department of Justice and Capitol Hill. 

The same day as the FBI decision was released, the GSA announced plans to dispose of 23 federally owned properties totaling 3.5M SF, ranging from courthouses to post offices, in an effort to save $1B over the next 10 years.

In this interview, Doomes discussed what a day on the job as head of a more than 350M SF real estate portfolio is like, how he plans to work with the District to deal with extraneous federal office space in the nation’s capital, and where the stalled plan for a new Securities and Exchange Commission headquarters stands.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Bisnow: You have prior experience at GSA and on Capitol Hill, and I'm wondering how your previous experience has shaped how you take on this new role.

Elliot Doomes: I've worked on public building issues almost my entire professional career. I got my start being a legislative assistant for [D.C. Rep.] Eleanor Holmes Norton when she was a senior Democrat on the public building subcommittee, and I staffed her there. I spent a few years in our personal office, and then I moved over to the committee, to the public buildings subcommittee. Then from there, I worked about 12 years before I went over to the appropriations committee, appropriating money for public buildings. So it's literally been my entire career working on these issues.

This was the only agency I wanted to work for in the Biden administration because I just think it's absolutely fascinating how buildings can define a community and provide this important service to federal agencies of providing a real estate solution so that federal workers can do their work. So I'm really just excited about public buildings issues, and it's something I've worked on my entire career.

Bisnow: I know you've only been in the job for a few weeks. But what does an average day look like for you in this new role?

Doomes: It’s a lot of meetings. The Public Buildings Service has about 5,800 employees. So a lot of meetings with stakeholders, meeting with some of the senior management from all across the nation, and kind of checking in with them. The reality is, it's an exciting time to be at GSA. The Public Buildings Service received about $3B in the Inflation Reduction Act, about $3B in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. So we're building courthouses, we're building office buildings, we're building land ports of entry, so coordinating that, along with the Biden administration's priorities about not just jobs but also providing infrastructure — but not just infrastructure, green infrastructure — and kind of keeping us on that path. 

So it's just been an exciting time meeting with people, understanding the operations of the agency a little bit better. I've been doing oversight over public buildings for 20 years. But it's a different thing to be in the organization and essentially see what it takes to deliver all these great projects. And when I say literally all around the country, I mean all around the country. We're doing work in the Southwest, in the Northeast — I'm headed to a groundbreaking in Florida for a courthouse later today — and projects and up in the Upper Northwest. So we're just doing a lot, and I'm getting up to speed and working on these issues.

This morning, GSA held a groundbreaking event to mark the construction of the new U.S. Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, FL. The 255,000 gsf federal courthouse will better meet the space and security needs of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. pic.twitter.com/ojDXD0BvCD

— GSA SoutheastSunbelt (@US_GSAR4) November 8, 2023

Bisnow: I want to jump into one of the top challenges for GSA right now, which is office space. As you know, the Government Accountability Office in its report earlier this year found that for the majority of the federal agency headquarters that it surveyed, 25% or less of the space was actually used. Talk to me about your plans for the future of office spaces under GSA’s jurisdiction.

Doomes: I've got every intention of following the lead set by my predecessor and Administrator Carnahan. We're looking to rightsize the portfolio and optimize the portfolio. We're looking at fewer buildings, better buildings and we're working with the agencies. So our job as the federal government's real estate landlord is to offer tools to other federal agencies about how they might rightsize their portfolio, understanding their workplace needs and giving them solutions. 

I think we're leading with the Workplace Innovation Lab, which we have here in the headquarters at 1800 F St. We have about six different types of workstations, six vendors showing different furniture, different orientation of work equipment, to show how if everyone isn't going to be in the office, how can we shrink the footprint. So we're talking about using lockers so that no one has a permanent workstation. And if you're only in the office two days a week, one of your co-workers might be sitting in that exact same space the other two days of the week. So we're offering agency solutions because how often people are coming in depends on the mission of the agency and sometimes it also depends on how often the agency is requiring people to come in. So we're just really offering tools to the agencies to rightsize their portfolio and give them as much space as they need to carry out the mission of the agency. 

And to be clear, it runs the spectrum. There are some federal workers who never went home, people that work in special [sensitive compartmented information facilities] space. They will always want to be in the office because that's what their work requires them to do. But some agencies lean more heavily on telework. So we're the real estate experts over here at the GSA Public Buildings Service, and we're offering tools. But we're also leading by example. One of the things I think the agency is proud of is moving the National Capital Region office building, where we had all our 1,000 NCR employees, and we moved them into 1800 F St. because we were trying to lead by example. We knew our headquarters was underutilized, so we said, "Let's get out of that space, move these people into this space, and then we can have another conversation about how we might reposition that asset that we vacated."

Bisnow: I want to talk about some of the specific leases that we've seen recently. We've seen some prospectuses from the GSA requesting cutting 20% to 40% of office footprints. Should we expect that to be a trend that continues?

Doomes: You know, no agency is exactly the same. Their leadership and their mission has different demands on it. What I can promise you is that we are aggressively working with agencies to ask them, and we're trying to lead in the federal government to say, "How many people actually come into work, how many people are teleworking, what are your teleworking policies?" And helping them come up with a solution. So you very well may see some of these prospectuses that come to Capitol Hill where we're slashing requirements. But there may be some that for whatever reason, that the agency says, "You know what? We're not really changing what we're doing. We've got a lot of people coming to work." So the short answer is, it depends.

Bisnow: I also wanted to talk about D.C.’s perspective. In an interview recently, Mayor Muriel Bowser said, "We need the federal government to rethink its properties and either have a purposeful plan for conversions or let us do it. Turn them over to us. And we'll figure it out." How do you think about the GSA’s relationship with D.C. and the importance of the office buildings in the community and how that all shakes out?

Doomes: Well, first of all, I'd like to frame my answer as I'm a D.C. guy. I’ve been here 23 years, almost exclusively in the District of Columbia — 8 years in Anacostia and the rest of the time mostly in Upper Northwest. And I got my career working for Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is the biggest advocate for the District ever. So that's my frame of thinking. 

And we're trying to work with the District of Columbia. As you probably know, my predecessor is now the deputy mayor of economic development, someone I enjoyed a terrific relationship with. And in my initial role, when I first came over to GSA in January, I was actually the regional administrator for the National Capital Region. In that role, I met with the then-deputy mayor of economic development, and we've had a very good relationship. I've had the chance to develop a good relationship with the executive director of the east campus of St. Elizabeths, where the District and the feds are working together. We're redeveloping the west campus, and we are supporting their efforts and redeveloping the east campus — someplace for federal workers to eat, someplace for them to live, where they can be entertained by going to catch a WNBA game. 

But I want to be very clear: Taxpayers have paid for these buildings, and we have an obligation to get a return for them. So we can't be in the business of just turning over federal buildings. But what we can do is work with the District of Columbia where there are some opportunities, and if we are emptying a building, to work with them about public benefit conveyances. GSA has a wide array of options to turn over a building at discounted prices or sometimes free, depending on the use, but it's kind of a case-by-case basis. But I have a commitment to working with my predecessor, Nina Albert, the former GSA PBS commissioner who’s now deputy mayor. And it’s been an ongoing conversation and I would expect that, given Nina's prior role and my current role, we're going to continue that and build together.

Bisnow: Last month, the SEC extended its Station Place lease for five years. What is the status of the planned headquarters development that was awarded to Douglas Development more than two years ago?

Doomes: Let's be clear: We're continuing to work with the developer Douglas Development. Obviously, post-Covid, circumstances have changed over the past few years since the lease was awarded. We're all trying to determine the best path forward, but we can't really comment on matters involved in negotiations on active contracts. But you're right to note that GSA granted the SEC a delegation of our leasing authority, and we allowed them to extend their current lease for up to five years as we figure out what the path is forward.

Bisnow: We have two final questions that we ask all our weekend interviewees. First, we ask everyone to make a bold prediction. So what is yours?

Doomes: That's a little bit dangerous. But I think our bold prediction is that GSA is going to continue to lead the charge on net-zero emissions and that we're going to see a transformation of buildings in markets where GSA has a significant presence. I think people understand, you know, 10 or 15 years ago, GSA started to require buildings to be green in order for you to have a good chance at snagging a GSA lease. And I think in the future, people are going to get even bolder with going green and moving toward net-zero emissions. And I think that's one way the Biden administration is trying to get positive movement on addressing climate change. As you probably know, the federal government is one of the biggest electricity users in the world. I think we really have a chance to do something transformational.

Bisnow: This is a weekend interview. People read it over a cup of coffee. What is a weekend routine that you have? 

Doomes: I'm a tennis head. I love to play tennis with my daughters. I love to play in tournaments, anytime, anywhere — in the morning, late at night. So that's what I love to do on the weekend. That’s how I recharge and get ready to go.

Bisnow: Have you taken up pickleball?

Doomes: No, no, no.