Two Major GSA Leases Hinge On An Uncertain Senate Committee Hearing
The General Services Administration reached an agreement in April to move the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. to the Federal Communications Commission's office in Southwest DC, freeing up that agency to move to NoMa, but the deal now awaits congressional approval.
The House has approved the prospectus, but the GSA is pushing a Senate committee to take up the deal at a hearing next week, although it has yet to be placed on the agenda, the Washington Business Journal reports.
Last summer, the GSA selected Trammell Crow's Sentinel Square in NoMa as the new HQ for the FCC. The agency's current landlord, Republic Properties Corp., filed a lawsuit contesting the GSA's search requirements in an attempt to keep the anchor tenant at its 445 12th St. SW building. In April, documents showed the GSA had agreed to replace the FCC in that building with the 431K SF PBGC lease, and Republic has proposed dropping its lawsuit once the deal closes.
That closing now hinges on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which has a meeting to take up a series of real estate prospectuses on July 12. The PBGC lease is not on the agenda, but the GSA is pushing to get the deal in front of the committee to allow the leases to move forward.
The FCC aims to move to NoMa in November 2019, and the PBGC would move to Southwest DC from its current office at 1200 K St. NW by June 2021.
