FEDERAL REAL 

PROPERTY

Strategic Focus 

Needed to Help 

Manage Vast and 

Diverse Warehouse 

Portfolio

Report to Congressional Requesters

November 2014

GAO-15-41

United States Government Accountability Office
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-15-41, a report to 

congressional requesters

November 2014

FEDERAL REAL PROPERTY

Strategic Focus Needed to Help Manage Vast and 

Diverse Warehouse Portfolio

Why GAO Did This Study

GAO has identified managing the 

federal government’s real property 

portfolio—which includes 

warehouses— as a high-risk area, due 

to long-standing problems such as 

reliance on long-term leasing. In 2013, 

federal civilian agencies reported that 

they occupied approximately 19,000 

warehouses consisting of 

approximately 90-million square feet of 

space. GAO was asked to examine the 

management of federal civilian 

warehouses. 

This report examines (1) available 

information on the characteristics of 

federal warehouses held or leased by 

civilian agencies; (2) the challenges 

selected civilian agencies report in 

acquiring, managing, and disposing of 

warehouse space; and (3) the extent to 

which GSA has fulfilled its federal real 

property leadership role with respect to 

warehouses. GAO analyzed fiscal year 

2013 FRPP data on warehouses held 

or leased by federal civilian agencies; 

visited 30 GSA, Interior, and DOE 

warehouses—selected to reflect a 

variety of uses and sizes—and 

interviewed officials from the three

agencies about real property data, the 

characteristics of warehouses, 

challenges to warehouse 

management, and GSA’s real-property 

leadership role.

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that GSA take 

actions to (1) enhance transparency of 

the FRPP data, (2) develop and 

implement a strategy to prioritize and 

plan for warehouse space, and (3) 

develop a strategy for its governmentwide policy role in relation to

warehouses. GSA generally agreed 

with the recommendations.

What GAO Found

The federal government’s vast civilian warehouse inventory supports a wide 

range of agencies’ storage needs; however, some data in the Federal Real 

Property Portfolio (FRPP) are not transparent for decision makers. According to

the fiscal year 2013 FRPP data, three civilian agencies—the General Services 

Administration (GSA), the Department of the Interior (Interior), and the 

Department of Energy (DOE)—held or leased the most civilian warehouse space. 

GSA’s warehouse portfolio— the largest covering about 29-million square feet—

was divided across multiple agencies. This is because of GSA’s landlord role to 

provide federal agencies with space from its government-owned inventory, as 

well as through leases with private companies. In the FRPP, GSA classified

nearly all of this warehouse space as utilized and active. However, GAO found 

that among these warehouses were buildings that were vacant for extended 

periods of time. This discrepancy raises questions about the transparency and 

usefulness of FRPP warehouse data, which could be misinterpreted by decision 

makers, including Congress and the Office of Management and Budget.

GSA, Interior, and DOE officials reported a wide range of challenges in 

acquiring, managing, and disposing of warehouse space, for example:

• Storage specifications related to the materials being stored, such as humidity 

controls for paper documents, can pose challenges acquiring space. 

• Aging and historical facilities can be difficult to manage because they require 

costly maintenance or may no longer meet agencies’ storage requirements. 

• Agencies are required to address contamination or environmental concerns

when disposing of warehouses—for example through sale or demolition—

which can be expensive and time consuming. Disposing of warehouses in 

remote or secured areas can be particularly challenging.

GSA has taken steps to fulfill its real-property leadership role for the warehouse 

portfolio, but its approach lacks strategic focus. As the government’s landlord, 

GSA has applied needs assessment and alternatives evaluation—leading 

capital-planning practices—to help agencies acquire warehouse space. 

However, GSA applied these practices on an asset-by-asset basis, rather than 

as part of a larger strategy rooted in priorities and a long-term plan, per leading 

practices. A strategic approach could help GSA overcome what are often seen 

as intractable challenges, such as a reliance on costly, long-term leasing or 

taking action to dispose of aging and obsolete assets. Additionally, GSA has a 

leadership role as a government-wide policy maker in the real property area. As 

part of the Freeze the Footprint policy, which directs agencies not to increase the 

total square footage of their domestic office and warehouse inventory compared 

to a fiscal year 2012 baseline, GSA has a role to consult with other agencies on 

more effective practices and efficient use of warehouse and office space. Despite 

past efforts, GSA has not fulfilled this government-wide policy role by providing a

strategy for efficient use of warehouse space or leveraging its landlord 

experience to strategically address some of the challenges facing federal 

agencies. Such a strategy could encourage agencies to rethink their overall 

storage needs, and consolidate and colocate, when possible.

View GAO-15-41. For more information, 

contact David Wise at (202) 512-2834 or 

wised@gao.gov.
Page i GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

Letter 1

Background 3

Warehouse Inventory Is Vast and Diverse, but Data in the Federal 

Real Property Database Are Not Consistent or Transparent 7

Selected Agencies Report a Wide Range of Challenges in 

Acquiring, Managing, and Disposing of Warehouse Space 18

GSA Has Taken Some Steps to Fulfill Its Leadership Role with 

Respect to Warehouses, but Its Approach Lacks a Strategic 

Focus 29

Conclusions 36

Recommendations for Executive Action 38

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 38

Appendix I Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 40

Appendix II Comments from the General Services Administration 42

Appendix III GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 45

Table

Table 1: Civilian Agencies’ Space Categorized as Warehouse (in 

Descending Order by Square Feet) Based on Federal 

Real Property Profile Fiscal Year 2013 Data 8

Figures

Figure 1: General Services Administration’s Civilian Warehouse 

Space, by Predominant Using Agency and Square 

Footage (in Million Square Feet), Based on Federal Real 

Property Profile, Fiscal Year 2013 Data 9

Figure 2: Examples of Department of the Interior Warehouses 

Used by the National Park Service in Washington, DC, 

(left) and Fish & Wildlife Service in Denver, Colorado, 

(right) 11

Figure 3: The National Ice Core Laboratory Building in Lakewood, 

Colorado, (left) Is Used to Store Ice Core Samples (right) 12

Contents
Page ii GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

Figure 4: Vacant GSA Warehouses Identified as Active and 

Utilized in the FRPP: Warehouses in Washington, DC 

Have Been Vacant since 2009 (left) and 2004 (right) 16

Figure 5: Aging Occupied GSA Warehouse in Ft. Worth, Texas 21

Figure 6: GSA Held Warehouses in Lakewood, Colorado, Pending 

Historic Designation 23

Figure 7: Vacant GSA Warehouse Formerly Used by the National 

Archives and Records Administration, Lakewood, 

Colorado 24

Figure 8: Excess GSA Warehouses in Curtis Bay, Maryland 26

Figure 9: Vacant GSA Warehouse in Washington, DC 28

Figure 10: Leading Capital-Planning Practices for Using 

Information to Make Capital Investment Decisions 31

Abbreviations

DLA Defense Logistics Agency 

DOE Department of Energy 

GRS General Records Schedule 

GSA General Services Administration 

FBMS Financial and Business Management System 

FIMS Facilities Information Management System

FRPC Federal Real Property Council 

FRPP Federal Real Property Profile 

NARA National Archives and Records Administration 

NPS National Park Service 

OGP Office of Government-wide Policy 

OMB Office of Management and Budget

PBS Public Buildings Service 

USGS U.S. Geological Survey

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the 

United States. The published product may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety 

without further permission from GAO. However, because this work may contain 

copyrighted images or other material, permission from the copyright holder may be 

necessary if you wish to reproduce this material separately.
Page 1 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

441 G St. N.W.

Washington, DC 20548

November 12, 2014

The Honorable Bill Shuster

Chairman

The Honorable Nick J. Rahall, II

Ranking Member

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

House of Representatives

The Honorable Lou Barletta

Chairman

The Honorable André Carson

Ranking Member

Subcommittee on Economic Development,

 Public Buildings, and Emergency Management

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

House of Representatives

The Honorable Eleanor Holmes Norton

House of Representatives

Warehouses are a part of the federal government’s vast and diverse real 

property portfolio, which GAO has identified as a high-risk area due to the 

long-standing problems in managing federal real property. Federal real 

property management is on GAO’s high risk list due to overreliance on 

leasing, the presence of unneeded and underutilized facilities, and

security challenges at federal facilities.1

You asked us to review the management of federal civilian agency 

warehouses. This report examines: (1) available information on the 

characteristics of federal warehouses held or leased by civilian agencies 

in terms of size, location, utilization, and purpose; (2) the challenges 

selected civilian agencies report in acquiring, managing, and disposing of 

warehouse space; and (3) the extent to which GSA has fulfilled its federal 

real property leadership role with respect to warehouses.

In 2013, federal civilian agencies 

reported that they occupy approximately 19,000 warehouses consisting of 

approximately 90-million square feet of space worldwide.

 1

GAO, High Risk Series: An Update, GAO-13-283 (Washington, D.C.: February 2013).
Page 2 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

To address these objectives, we obtained and analyzed Federal Real 

Property Profile (FRPP) summary data submissions from fiscal year 

2013, the most recent data available for warehouses owned and leased 

by the federal government. We identified three real property-holding 

agencies for our review, the General Services Administration (GSA), the 

Department of Energy (DOE), and the Department of the Interior 

(Interior). We chose GSA, DOE, and Interior because these were the 

three largest agencies in terms of total warehouse square footage of all 

civilian real property agencies that are required to submit data for the 

FRPP, and accounted for over one half of the warehouse square footage 

reported by civilian agencies.

To determine what is known about federal warehouses, we obtained and 

analyzed real property data from FRPP, DOE’s Facilities Information 

Management System (FIMS) and Interior’s Financial and Business 

Management System (FBMS) for fiscal year 2013. We also reviewed 

Federal Real Property Council (FRPC) guidance and other documents 

related to the agencies’ real property data and the FRPP database. 

According to our conversations with agency officials and our review of 

FRPP, FIMS, and FBMS we believe that the data contained in these 

databases are sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report.

To gather detailed examples of warehouse size, location, utilization and 

purpose, we selected a nonprobability sample of owned and leased 

buildings for each agency that were listed as active, inactive, utilized, and 

unutilized, and visited 30 warehouses clustered around four cities: 

Washington, D.C.; Fort Worth, Texas; Denver, Colorado; and Livermore, 

California. This strategy afforded both geographic diversity and balance 

among our selected agencies while also accommodating time and 

resource constraints. Because this is a nonprobability sample, 

observations made at these site visits do not support generalizations 

about other properties described in the FRPP database or about the 

characteristics or limitations of other agencies’ real property data. Rather 

the observations made during the site visits provided specific, detailed 

examples of issues that were described in general terms by agency 

officials regarding the characteristics of warehouses and challenges the 

officials face in acquiring, managing, and disposing of warehouse space.

To determine the extent to which GSA fulfilled its federal real property 

leadership role with respect to warehouses, we analyzed GSA’s 
Page 3 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

acquisition, management, and disposition policies and practices and 

compared them with (1) Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) 

Capital Programming Guide2 and (2) GAO’s Executive Guide: Leading 

Practices in Capital Decision-Making,3

We conducted this performance audit from November 2013 to November 

2014 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to 

obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for 

our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 

that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings 

and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

and we interviewed headquarters 

and regional officials about warehouse acquisition, management, and 

disposal.

The federal government’s real property portfolio is vast and diverse and 

includes about 400,000 buildings that are located throughout the country 

and are held or leased by different federal agencies, both civilian and 

defense. In addition to warehouses, it includes office buildings, 

courthouses, laboratories, land ports-of-entry, and housing, among other 

assets. To promote efficient and economical use of federal government 

real property, in 2004, the President issued Executive Order 13327 

establishing the FRPC, which is composed of senior federal real property 

managers and representatives from the Office of Management and 

Budget (OMB) and GSA, among others.4

 2

OMB, Capital Programming Guide, Supplement to Office of Management and Budget 

Circular A-11, Part 7: Planning, Budgeting, and Acquisition of Capital Assets (June 2006).

The executive order required 

GSA, in consultation with the FRPC, to establish and maintain a single, 

comprehensive database describing the nature, use, and extent of all real 

3

GAO, Executive Guide: Leading Practices in Capital Decision-Making, GAO/AIMD-99-32 

(Washington, D.C.: December 1998).

4

Federal Real Property Asset Management, Exec. Order No. 13327, 69 Fed. Reg. 5897 

(Feb. 6, 2004). The executive order applies to executive branch agencies listed at 31 

U.S.C. §901(b); the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, 

Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, the 

Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, the Treasury, and Veterans Affairs; the 

Environmental Protection Agency; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; the 

U.S. Agency for International Development; GSA; the National Science Foundation; the 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission; the Office of Personnel Management; the Small 

Business Administration; and the Social Security Administration.

Background
Page 4 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

property under the custody and control of executive branch agencies, 

except when otherwise required for reasons of national security. To meet 

this requirement, GSA established the FRPP and provides guidance to 

agencies about how to annually report real property data under the 

custody and control of executive branch agencies. FRPP data can be 

used by government decision makers, including Congress, OMB, and 

agencies, to understand the nature, use, and the extent of federal real 

property assets.

According to FRPC guidance, warehouses are “buildings used for 

storage, such as ammunition storage, covered sheds, and buildings 

primarily used for storage of vehicles or materials.” This can include a 

wide range of buildings’ types and sizes that are used for both long-term 

and temporary storage purposes. For example, the federal government 

owns civilian warehouses (later referred to as warehouse space) ranging

from large buildings covering hundreds of thousands of square feet used 

to store a wide variety of items, including official government records and 

research equipment to shed-like buildings for storage of such things as 

grounds-keeping equipment. The government also leases warehouse 

space from the private sector. Such space is used to store a variety of 

items including, for example, historical artifacts and items left in tribute at 

the Vietnam War Memorial and maintenance items for other federal 

buildings.

According to the FRPC, real property assets must be categorized based 

on the predominant or greatest use of the real property asset. Buildings 

used primarily for storage purposes are classified as warehouses even 

though large portions of them may be used for an office or research. For 

example, the federal government owns a warehouse in Lakewood, 

Colorado, which according to FRPP data is almost 700,000 square feet; 

however, according to local officials over, 100,000 square feet of the 

building is actually office space. In addition there may be fluctuations 

across asset classes from year to year when buildings’ space is 

reconfigured and reclassified. Further, the FRPP data identifies a single 

using agency for a building based on the largest share of occupied space 

while other agencies may also occupy space in the same building.

Buildings used predominantly as warehouses are one of the two real 

property classes (the other being office space) identified in the Freeze the 

Footprint policy issued by OMB. Specifically, in June 2010, the President 

directed agencies to achieve $3 billion in total real property cost savings 

by the end of fiscal year 2012 through a number of measures, including 

disposing of excess real property and reducing leasing through 
Page 5 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

consolidations and increased space utilization.5 In May 2012, OMB 

issued a memorandum directing agencies to not increase the size of their 

civilian real-estate inventory, stating that increases in an agency’s total 

square footage of civilian property must be offset through consolidation, 

colocation, or disposal of space from the inventory of that agency.6 In 

March 2013, OMB issued a memorandum establishing implementation 

procedures for the Freeze the Footprint policy. This memorandum 

clarified that agencies were not to increase the total square footage of 

their domestic office and warehouse inventory compared to a fiscal year 

2012 baseline.7

GSA has key leadership responsibilities related to real property 

management for the federal government.

• First, GSA acquires, manages, and disposes real property on behalf 

of agencies, a function that is commonly referred to as the landlord 

role. This function is performed by GSA’s Public Buildings Service, 

and in doing so, GSA has an inventory of about 9,000 governmentowned or -leased facilities. GSA is responsible for managing the life 

cycle of federally owned assets, including eventually disposing of 

such properties, and entering into, renewing, and terminating 

contracts for leased properties.

• Second, in a government-wide policy role, GSA sets real property 

management policy for the federal government as a whole. The Office 

of Government-wide Policy (OGP) is tasked, among other things, to 

identify, evaluate, and promote best practices to improve efficiency of 

management processes. In this policy role, GSA also supports the 

FRPC by providing oversight guidance, publishing performance 

measures, and maintaining the FRPP database. Additionally, the 

Freeze the Footprint policy assigns GSA leadership responsibilities; 

directing GSA to consult with other agencies on promoting full 

implementation of the policy, including how to use technology and 

space management to consolidate, increase occupancy rates in 

 5

Presidential Memorandum, Disposing of Unneeded Federal Real Estate—Increasing 

Sales Proceeds, Cutting Operations Costs, and Improving Energy Efficiency, 75 Fed. Reg.

33987 (June 16, 2010).

6

OMB, Memorandum to the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies: Promoting 

Efficient Spending to Support Agency Operations (May 11, 2012).

7

OMB, Management Procedures Memorandum No. 2013-02 (Mar. 14, 2013).
Page 6 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

facilities, and eliminate lease arrangements that are not cost or space 

effective.

We stated in the February 2013 update to the High-Risk Series that 

although some progress had been made, the government continued to 

lack consistent, accurate, and useful data that could support strategic 

decision making about federal real property.8 Internal control standards 

for federal executive-branch agencies require that agencies have 

relevant, reliable, and timely information for decision-making and 

external-reporting purposes.9 We have also identified concerns with 

GSA’s capital planning, high-value leases, and FRPP data quality. 

Specifically, in 2012 we found that GSA’s use of information to make 

capital investment decisions conforms to some leading practices 

identified in GAO’s Executive Guide on Leading Practices in Capital 

Decision Making10 and OMB’s Capital Programming Guide11, but GSA 

lacks a transparent process for prioritizing projects and a comprehensive 

long-term capital plan that fully aligns with leading practices.12 These 

guides also identify leading practices in capital decision making including: 

needs assessment, alternatives evaluation, project prioritization, and 

long-term capital planning. In another 2012 report, we raised concerns 

that the FRPP is not a useful tool for describing the nature, use, and 

extent of excess and underutilized federal real property. For example, 

FRPC had not ensured that key data elements—including buildings’

utilization, condition, annual operating costs, mission dependency, and 

value—were defined and reported consistently and accurately.13

 8

Lastly, in 

a 2013 report we found that overreliance on costly leasing has been a 

concern, and we found that GSA has not systematically prioritized high 

value leases that would be most beneficial to move to federally owned 

GAO-13-283.

9

See, e.g., 31 U.S.C. § 3512 (c), (d); and GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the 

Federal Government, GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1 (Washington, D.C.: November 1999).

10GAO/AIMD-99-32. 

11OMB, Capital Programming Guide, Supplement to Office of Management and Budget 

Circular A-11, Part 7: Planning, Budgeting, and Acquisition of Capital Assets (June 2006).

12GAO, Federal Buildings Fund: Improved Transparency and Long-term Plan Needed to 

Clarify Capital Funding Priorities, GAO-12-646 (Washington D.C.: July 2012).

13GAO, Federal Real Property: National Strategy and Better Data Needed to Improve 

Management of Excess and Underutilized Property, GAO-12-645 (Washington D.C.: June 

2012).
Page 7 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

solutions, and it has not incorporated space needs that are the highest 

priority for ownership investment into a long-term capital plan.14 As a 

result of these reports, we made several recommendations to address 

these issues, which we discuss later in this report.

According to FRPP data, in fiscal year 2013, three agencies held or 

leased most of the civilian warehouse space either owned or leased by 

the federal government: GSA, Interior, and DOE. Of the approximate 90-

million square feet of warehouse space occupied by civilian agencies, 

GSA accounted for about 29-million square feet, Interior for about 15-

million square feet, and DOE for about 11-million square feet. (See table 

1.) Cumulatively, these three agencies held or leased about 63 percent of 

total civilian warehouse space. Interior had the most warehouses among 

civilian agencies by far.

 14GAO, Federal Real Property: Greater Transparency and Strategic Focus Needed for 

High-Value GSA Leases, GAO-13-744 (Washington D.C.; September 2013).

Warehouse Inventory 

Is Vast and Diverse, 

but Data in the 

Federal Real Property 

Database Are Not 

Consistent or 

Transparent

GSA, Interior, and DOE 

Hold or Lease Over Half of

Civilian Warehouse Space 

Owned or Leased by the 

Federal Government
Page 8 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

Table 1: Civilian Agencies’ Space Categorized as Warehouse (in Descending Order 

by Square Feet) Based on Federal Real Property Profile Fiscal Year 2013 Data

Agency Square feet

Number of 

warehouses

General Services Administrationa 29,293,442 600

Interior 15,266,082 9,644

Energy 11,475,630 2,205

Veterans Affairs 6,491,669 884

State 4,995,428 553

Agriculture 4,790,154 1,444

Justice 4,286,865 331

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 4,054,944 494

Homeland Security 3,181,477 1,531

Transportation 2,512,673 810

Labor 1,030,231 139

Health and Human Services 902,358 246

Commerce 664,675 100

National Science Foundation 241,730 62

State (USAID) 236,921 13

Environmental Protection Agency 87,413 25

Total 89,511,692 19,081

Source: GAO analysis of fiscal year 2013 Federal Real Property Profile data. | GAO-15-41

Notes: All real property data from the agencies required to submit data to the FRPP.

a

GSA data includes civilian warehouse space used by GSA as well as by other federal agencies

based on GSA’s fiscal year 2013 FRPP submission.

Of about 19,000 warehouses held or leased by all civilian agencies, the 

majority—about 18,000 warehouses covering about 68-million square feet 

of warehouse space—were government-owned. In addition, civilian 

agencies leased about 1,000 warehouses covering about 24-million 

square feet of warehouse space.

Civilian warehouses vary in size, ranging from very small—for example, a 

16-square foot fire hose shed used by Interior in the Shenandoah 

National Park—to very large storage facilities, such as a vast GSA 

warehouse of about 1 million square feet in Burlington, New Jersey. This 

warehouse serves as a distribution center for GSA’s Federal Acquisition 

Service.
Page 9 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

GSA, Interior, and DOE’s inventories of warehouses are made up of 

warehouses of diverse sizes, locations, and purposes.

According to the fiscal year 2013 FRPP data, GSA held or leased 600 

warehouses, ranging from 40 to over 1 million square feet. These 

warehouses were occupied by GSA or other federal agencies, as GSA 

provides other agencies with warehouse space from its governmentowned inventory as well as through leases with private lessors. Civilian 

agencies used over 29 million square feet of GSA-held or leased 

warehouse space, with GSA itself occupying the largest share—7.3 

million square feet. (See fig. 1.)

Figure 1: General Services Administration’s Civilian Warehouse Space, by 

Predominant Using Agency and Square Footage (in Million Square Feet), Based on 

Federal Real Property Profile, Fiscal Year 2013 Data

Note: Percentages may not add to 100 because of rounding. Predominant using agency is based on 

a single agency in a building with the largest share of occupied space and may not fully represent 

other agencies’ occupancy.

a

DOE space acquired through GSA is included in “Other agencies” category.

GSA, DOE, and Interior 

Have Varied Inventories 

Based on Size and 

Location of Warehouses

GSA-Held or Leased

Warehouse Inventory
Page 10 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

GSA, in its role as the government’s landlord, is responsible not only for 

helping federal agencies acquire real property, including warehouses, but 

also for helping agencies to dispose of real property in their custody and 

control. Thus GSA acts as a disposal agent, not only for its own inventory, 

but also for other federal agencies that declare their assets excess. As 

such, in fiscal year 2013, a portion of GSA’s warehouse inventory—40 

warehouses totaling 3.2-million square feet—was comprised of excess 

warehouses that GSA was in the process of disposing. Excess 

warehouses and challenges associated with their disposal are discussed 

in greater detail later in this report.

Unlike most other agencies, in fiscal year 2013, the GSA-reported 

inventory of warehouse space for civilian agencies consisted 

predominantly of warehouses leased from private lessors: 434 

warehouses covering 15.5-million square feet. The annual rent for these 

warehouses totaled about $170 million. Warehouses leased by GSA and 

challenges associated with them are discussed later in this report.

According to GSA headquarters officials, the agency does not collect data 

on what is being stored in the warehouses used by GSA and other 

agencies. GSA is not required to collect storage information; however, in 

our discussions with regional officials, they were able to tell us how 

warehouses were being used on a case-by-case basis. For example, in 

addition to excess warehouses in GSA’s own inventory, GSA warehouses 

were used for operations and maintenance purposes by the agency’s field 

offices as well as for storing and distributing supplies in support of federal 

acquisition functions, among other things. Although FRPP data cannot 

provide information on how other agencies use their warehouses, GSA 

headquarters officials told us that the installation-name descriptor in 

FRPP—indicating warehouses used to store federal records, equipment, 

or as garages or hangars—offers some insight.

In fiscal year 2013, Interior held or leased about 10,000 warehouses, 

ranging from under 10 to over 400,000 square feet, scattered across the 

country in national parks, wildlife refuges, and urban areas. According to 

Interior officials, its warehouse inventory supports and reflects the 

agency’s mission to protect and manage the nation’s natural resources 

and cultural heritage. Interior warehouses are predominantly government 

owned.

According to Interior’s FBMS data, most Interior warehouses are used for 

storage of equipment and vehicles as well as shed outbuildings where 

seed and other maintenance supplies are stored. (See fig. 2.)

Interior-Held or Leased 

Warehouse Inventory
Page 11 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

Additionally, Interior-held or leased warehouses include historic buildings, 

such as at Fort Vancouver, Washington, which are not currently utilized 

for storage purposes, but are categorized as warehouses based on the 

historic functional use that is exhibited for the visiting public.

Figure 2: Examples of Department of the Interior Warehouses Used by the National Park Service in Washington, DC, (left) and 

Fish & Wildlife Service in Denver, Colorado, (right)

Interior has also added to its portfolio of warehouses through its 

occupancy agreements with GSA, and this inventory is reflected in the 

FRPP for GSA-held or leased properties. In fiscal year 2013, through 

GSA, Interior used 107 warehouses, covering about 1.7-million square 

feet. (See fig. 1.) Based on our site visits, these warehouses support a 

wide variety of Interior storage needs, including storage requiring specialtemperature and air-quality conditions. For example, U.S. Geological 

Survey is using portions of a large industrial warehouse in Lakewood, 

Colorado, for fossils, rock core, maps, and records storage purposes as 

well as to store samples of ice core from Antarctica and Greenland that 

require special temperature controls. The ice core samples are located 

inside a separate, smaller storage facility within the larger warehouse. 

The separate facility includes two temperature-controlled chambers; one 

used for ice core storage and the other for a work area to cut ice core into 

smaller samples for scientific research. (See fig. 3.)
Page 12 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

Figure 3: The National Ice Core Laboratory Building in Lakewood, Colorado, (left) Is Used to Store Ice Core Samples (right)

In fiscal year 2013, DOE held or leased about 2,200 warehouses, ranging 

from about 10 to almost 400,000 square feet, located primarily at DOE 

sites. DOE’s inventory is predominantly government-owned warehouses 

located within the secure perimeters of its sites, such as national 

laboratories and other research and storage facilities. In support of DOE’s 

energy research and nuclear safety and security mission, a portion of 

DOE warehouses is used for storage of nuclear as well as other materials 

that require special storage conditions. Specifically, based on DOE’s 

FIMS data for fiscal year 2013, out of 11.5-million square feet of 

warehouse space, 4.2-million square feet were used for storage of 

nuclear, hazardous, combustible, and other materials requiring special 

storage conditions. Additionally, 6.9-million square feet of warehouse 

space were used for general storage and programmatic general-storage 

purposes, which include items such as laboratory equipment and 

research testing materials. The remaining approximate 400,000 square 

feet were used for other storage purposes. For example, one DOE site 

we visited used a warehouse for storage of wind-energy-testing 

equipment, including 50-foot blades for testing wind turbines.

DOE-Held or Leased 

Warehouse Inventory
Page 13 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

In our previous assessment of the FRPP, we found that the FRPP’s data 

can be used in a general sense to track assets—such as their location—

to provide an overall perspective on agencies’ asset portfolios (as 

presented above). However, our previous findings also raised concerns 

about the quality of the FRPP data.15

Similarly, in this review, we found inconsistencies in how GSA interprets 

and agencies report certain data elements for its warehouse inventory.

In our 2012 report, we found that 

agencies were allowed to use their own definitions for some FRPP data 

elements, a practice that undermined the quality of the data when 

amassed in a single database. More specifically, we raised concerns that 

the FRPC has not ensured that key data elements—including buildings’

utilization, condition, annual operating costs, mission dependency, and 

value—are defined and reported consistently and accurately. The FRPC 

has not followed sound data-collection practices, and agencies were able 

to submit data that were inconsistent and therefore not useful as a 

measure for comparing performance inside and outside the federal 

government. We recommended that GSA take specific actions to improve 

the FRPP data, including that all data collection requirements are clearly 

defined and that data reported to the database are consistent from 

agency to agency. GSA developed an action plan for implementing our 

recommendations. We are in the process of determining whether the 

actions in this plan, if fully implemented, will improve FRPP’s consistency

and reliability. We plan to report our results as part of our 2015 high risk 

update.

Utilization: We found that agencies inconsistently interpreted FRPP’s 

definition of utilization for warehouses making it difficult for decision 

makers to compare utilization data across agencies and governmentwide. The utilization data element is meant to track the extent that an

asset is used. Prior to fiscal year 2013, utilization was defined as a 

percentage of occupied space; thus, a space that was 75 percent 

occupied and 25 percent vacant had utilization rate of 75 percent. In fiscal 

year 2013, the FRPC changed the definition of utilization from a 

percentage value to three options—utilized, underutilized, and 

 15GAO-12-645. 

Consistency and 

Transparency Issues 

Affect Warehouse Data in 

the Federal Real Property 

Profile
Page 14 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

unutilized,

16 consistent with regulatory definitions implementing the 

McKinney-Vento Act.17

In addition to other agencies’ using this data element inconsistently, GSA 

interprets FRPP utilization definitions in a way that leads to GSA’s 

identifying nearly all of its warehouses as utilized. GSA does not identify 

any of its civilian warehouses as underutilized, only using two of the three 

utilization data options—utilized and unutilized. Specifically, in fiscal year 

2013, of the 600 civilian GSA-held warehouses, 537 warehouses were 

identified as utilized, 40 as unutilized for warehouses in excess status, 

and 23 warehouses did not have a utilization code because they were 

listed in disposed status. 

FRPC guidance specified the change to the data 

element but not how agencies should interpret these definitions or how 

the percentage values agencies previously submitted (and may still track 

in their internal databases) should be translated into the three new 

utilization options. According to GSA headquarters officials, agencies are 

expected to interpret utilization options based on regulatory definitions 

and in relation to their asset portfolios and data collection systems. DOE 

headquarters officials told us that they developed their own policy that 

converts percentage utilization scores in FIMS to utilized, underutilized, 

and unutilized options in the FRPP. For example, for fiscal year 2013, all 

DOE assets with utilization score of 40 percent and above are considered 

utilized; scores from 2 to 39 percent reflect underutilized assets; and 

assets that scored 1 percent or lower are considered unutilized. Interior’s 

FBMS system had the same three utilization options as the FRPC 

guidance, but also included additional utilization options, such as 

overutilized.

 16The FRPC guidance refers to the following definitions. Unutilized property means an 

entire property or portion thereof, with or without improvements, not occupied for current 

program purposes for the accountable Executive agency or occupied in caretaker status 

only.” 41 C.F.R. § 102-75.1160; 24 C.F.R. § 581.1. Underutilized means an entire property 

or portion thereof, with or without improvements, which is used only at irregular periods or 

intermittently by the accountable landholding agency for current program purposes of that 

agency, or which is used for current program purposes that can be satisfied with only a 

portion of the property.” 41 C.F.R. § 102-75.1160; 24 C.F.R. § 581.1. Utilized means 

anything that is not defined as unutilized or underutilized.

17Pub. L. No. 100-77, 101 Stat. 482 (1987). The Act, as amended, requires federal 

landholding agencies to make available real property that they identify as excess, surplus, 

unutilized or underutilized for possible use to assist the homeless. 42 U.S.C. §§ 11301 et 

seq. See also forthcoming GAO report Federal Real Property: More Useful Information to 

Providers Could Improve the Homeless Assistance Program, GAO-14-739 (Washington, 

D.C.: Sept. 30, 2014).
Page 15 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

To gain further insights into GSA’s warehouse space utilization and what 

space may potentially be vacant and available for federal tenants, we 

examined GSA’s monthly vacancy report, which GSA uses to track 

vacant space for lease to agencies. We found that among the 

warehouses listed in the FRPP as utilized, some were vacant for long 

periods of time.

18

 18According to GSA headquarters officials, vacancy and the FRPP definition of utilization 

are not synonymous. 

During our site visits, we identified 3 GSA warehouses 

totaling almost 200,000 square feet that have been vacant 1, 5, and 10 

years and were listed as utilized in the fiscal year 2013 FRPP. We also 

found that GSA’s monthly vacancy report does not collect information on 

vacancy duration, and therefore there is no way of knowing how many 

warehouses listed as utilized have long-term vacancies. Additionally, the 

May 2014 vacancy report provided by GSA did not include 2 of the 

warehouses included in our site visits, one of which has been vacant 

since at least 2004 and the other since 2009. (See fig. 4.) As such, while 

GSA’s interpretation of utilization in the FRPP may be explained given its 

government landlord role, its warehouse data in the FRPP—for 

warehouses GSA uses and those that it provides to tenant agencies—

could be misinterpreted by decision makers, including Congress, OMB, 

and agencies, to mean that nearly all GSA warehouse space is being 

used for storage. This raises questions about the transparency and 

usefulness of GSA’s data and creates potential inconsistencies with 

government-wide data from other agencies in the FRPP.
Page 16 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

Figure 4: Vacant GSA Warehouses Identified as Active and Utilized in the FRPP: Warehouses in Washington, DC Have Been 

Vacant since 2009 (left) and 2004 (right)

Status: Similarly, GSA used the status data element in such a way that 

nearly all of its warehouses were identified as active. The FRPP guidance 

document for fiscal year 2013 states that the status data element reflects 

the predominant physical/operational status of the asset, and active

status refers to an asset that is currently needed to support the agency’s 

mission or function. There are several options in the FRPP to describe 

status;19

 19The following options are available in the FRPP to describe the status of the asset: 

active, inactive, report of excess submitted, report of excess accepted, determination to 

dispose, disposed, and cannot currently be disposed. These options represent the 

complete list of options, which applies to government-owned inventory. Fewer options 

from this list apply to leased assets and assets in other legal interest categories. 

however, GSA interprets the FRPP status definition in such a 

way that the agency is not using the inactive option, which, according to 

the FRPP guidance, refers to an asset that is not currently needed to 

support the agency’s mission or function but will have a planned need in 

the future. In the fiscal year 2013 FRPP, all GSA warehouses, unless 

identified as “disposed” or “report of excess accepted,” meaning that the 

property is undergoing disposal process, were listed as active or currently 

needed. (For example, see fig. 4.)
Page 17 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

According to GSA headquarters officials, they interpret the FRPP 

definitions to mean that all assets, including warehouses, are active

because they may be needed to provide space to federal agencies in 

fulfilling GSA’s mission as the government’s landlord. According to fiscal 

year 2013 FRPP data, about 90 percent of warehouses in GSA’s 

inventory were listed as active. These same warehouses were also listed 

as utilized. However, there is no discernable way to determine from the 

FRPP data whether these warehouses are active and utilized beyond 

GSA’s interpretation of these data elements, which, in its view, are 

particular to its mission. The Government Accountability and 

Transparency Board, established in 2011 to provide strategic direction for 

enhancing transparency of federal spending data, determined that 

consistent data promote more accurate and comparable data for 

improved reporting and decision-making.20 However, GSA has not 

clarified its interpretation and practice in the FRPP annual reports or its 

guidance documents, thus decision makers reviewing GSA’s FRPP data 

would assume that the vast number of warehouses listed as utilized and 

active are needed and being used, when in fact, some may be vacant for 

extended periods of time or not useful to other agencies. Thus, GSA’s 

interpretation of utilization and status data elements for its warehouse 

inventory affects the accuracy and clarity of the data, limiting the 

transparency of warehouse inventory for the largest civilian holder of 

warehouse space and for the government as a whole. As a result of 

GSA’s interpretations, Congress and other decision makers lack accurate 

and transparent information that may be needed to help the federal 

government reduce its unused warehouse inventory.

 20Government Accountability and Transparency Board, Report and Recommendations to 

the President (December 2011). 
Page 18 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

GSA, in its landlord role, is responsible for acquiring warehouses on 

behalf of federal agencies and works with those agencies to identify their 

storage needs. According to GSA regional and headquarters officials, an 

agency’s warehouse needs depend largely on what it plans on storing at 

a particular location, and a key challenge is to match storage 

specifications with the available inventory. As such, one of the first factors 

GSA considers as it begins to identify warehouse space, is what the 

tenant agency plans on storing and whether special storage conditions 

are required. GSA regional officials told us that, for example, paper 

products such as official records, require humidity controls to prevent 

moisture from destroying the documents. They noted that if these paper 

records contain secure information, the warehouse needs to have 

security features not required for other warehouses. The length of time 

paper records must be retained is determined by the General Records 

Schedules (GRS), which are issued by the Archivist of the United States, 

and guide disposal of records, common to several or all agencies of the 

federal government.21

 21GRS includes records relating to civilian personnel, fiscal accounting, procurement,

communications, printing, and other common functions, and certain nontextual records. 

They also include records relating to temporary commissions, boards, councils and 

committees. These records comprise an estimated one third of the total volume of records 

created by federal agencies. Usually, administrative subject files have short retention 

periods, less than 3 years. Program subject files may be needed by the agency for 10 

years or more and may have archival value as well.

GSA regional officials also noted that storage of 

artwork in warehouses requires certain climate controls and security 

features. GSA regional and headquarters officials noted that acquiring 

leased warehouse space begins with an assessment of what the agency 

plans on storing since that determines warehouse requirements. The 

officials told us that GSA released internal guidance in May 2014, which 

is intended, in part, to make sure leasing specialists are collecting the 

Selected Agencies 

Report a Wide Range 

of Challenges in 

Acquiring, Managing, 

and Disposing of 

Warehouse Space

Challenges Acquiring 

Warehouse Space: 

Storage Specifications and 

Funding Constraints 

Increase Reliance on 

Leased Space
Page 19 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

appropriate information from agencies about their storage needs in order 

to acquire warehouse space at the best deal along with supplying the 

agencies what they need.

Headquarters officials with GSA, Interior, and DOE told us the agencies 

face challenges acquiring warehouse space through construction or 

purchasing because of funding constraints, and thus rely on warehouses 

already owned by the government or leased from the private sector. 

According to fiscal year 2013 FRPP data, the federal government leased 

about 24million square feet of warehouse space for civilian use, a 

substantial increase from the approximately 19-million square feet of 

leased warehouse space for both civilian and defense agencies reported 

in a 1999 GSA report on government warehouse, storage, and 

distribution functions.22 We have previously found that overreliance on 

costly leasing where ownership would be more economical is one reason 

that federal real property has remained on GAO’s high risk list. Managing 

federal real property has been designated as high risk since 2003, and in 

our 2013 High Risk Series: An Update, 23

Additionally, GSA headquarters and regional officials told us that some 

agencies have highly specialized requirements for warehouses and thus 

generally rely on warehouse space acquired from the private sector. In 

some cases, agencies have been leasing warehouse space from the 

private sector for extended periods of time. For example, we visited a 

warehouse GSA has leased from the private sector for approximately 25 

years and currently uses to store operating equipment such as electrical 

transformers, fire alarms, and tools. This warehouse, the lease for which 

does not expire until 2020, also serves as a continuity-of-operations 

center. We also visited another warehouse that has been leased from the 

private sector for approximately 14 years where the National Park Service 

(NPS) stores a variety of artifacts including statues and film negatives 

requiring specialized storage conditions. In these examples, GSA and 

we found that the government 

continues to rely heavily on leasing and that the government often leases 

space from private landlords in the same real estate market where it also 

owns underutilized real property. This practice is inefficient, resulting in 

millions of dollars of additional costs to federal agencies.

 22GSA, Strategic Storage Needs of the Federal Government (Washington D.C.: July 

1999).

23GAO-13-283.
Page 20 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

NPS regional officials acknowledged that the agencies’ storage needs 

were unlikely to change in the future and that they did not know of any 

plans to determine whether the government should attempt to purchase 

the warehouses or to move to government-owned space.24

Officials at the agencies we reviewed stated that aging infrastructure, and 

issues regarding historic preservation and maintenance could result in 

additional costs and more time needed for restoration, repair, or disposal. 

According to GSA, Interior, and DOE officials, some government-owned 

warehouses were built in the 1940’s and 1950’s and the buildings’

conditions have deteriorated, which can make them costly to maintain 

and repair. For example, we visited warehouses at one site in Fort Worth, 

Texas, which, according to GSA officials, were used as temporary 

barracks for German prisoners of war during World War II. The officials 

told us that some of these buildings have cracked foundations, holes in 

the siding, and leaky roofs, and coupled with the outdated design,25 this 

means that repairing or updating them could be prohibitively expensive. 

(See fig. 5.) At the time of our site visit, the officials were in the process of 

moving the tenant agencies from one of these warehouses to other 

government-owned warehouses nearby. Once the building is vacant, 

GSA plans to demolish the building and lease the foundation to the 

Federal Emergency Management Agency as an area to preposition 

emergency response supplies.26

 24According to Interior headquarters officials, purchasing a warehouse in the current fiscal 

environment would be very difficult. The officials told us that there is an effort across 

Interior’s bureaus to coordinate museum program needs and to consolidate collections in 

fewer owned facilities nationwide, when feasible.

25According to the officials, the support beams and low ceilings of these warehouses 

make for an inefficient storage environment.

26According to the officials, once the buildings are demolished, they would no longer be 

considered warehouses in FRPP and would be reclassified as structures.

Challenges Managing 

Warehouse Space: Aging 

and Historic Assets, 

Location, and Vacancies
Page 21 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

Figure 5: Aging Occupied GSA Warehouse in Ft. Worth, Texas

Aging buildings can also mean warehouses no longer meet agencies’

storage requirements, which can result in agencies vacating for newer 

space. For example, GSA regional officials showed us a warehouse 

previously occupied by the National Archives and Records Administration 

(NARA) to store official government records. According to GSA officials, 

NARA vacated this approximately 150,000 square foot building in 2013 

because the building’s humidity controls and roof quality did not meet 

NARA’s requirements for storing government records. NARA moved to a 

privately owned warehouse that could meet the agency’s requirements.

The government-owned building is currently vacant, and GSA officials 

told us they have a potential tenant. GSA is considering remodeling and 

turning the building into office space. Given the cost of this potential 

project, officials estimated the building would remain vacant for at least 4 

years, while GSA conducts feasibility and financial analyses, even if the 

potential tenant agency decides to occupy the space.

In addition to the costs associated with aging warehouses, agencies may 

also face additional costs dealing with sites that have historic or cultural 

value. The National Historic Preservation Act, as amended, requires 

agencies to establish a preservation program to identify, evaluate, and 

nominate historic federal buildings to the National Register of Historic 
Page 22 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

Places, and manage those buildings in a manner that considers their 

historic character.27

 27Pub. L. No. 89-665, 80 Stat. 915 (1966), codified at 16 U.S.C. 470 §§ et. seq.

Listing on the National Register of Historic Places 

provides a process for reviewing federal buildings before federal agencies 

can demolish or alter the buildings in ways that affect their historic 

character. According to Interior and GSA regional officials, historic 

preservation requires specialized materials and trades, and historic 

properties are traditionally more expensive to repair and maintain than 

modern facilities. Additionally, GSA regional officials told us they have 

halted disposals at the Denver Federal Center until a final determination 

has been made regarding designating the area a historic site. The 

officials said that for the two warehouses pictured in figure 6, given their

deteriorating condition, the most cost-effective option for them would be 

to dispose of the buildings through demolition. The brick building pictured 

in figure 6 below is approximately 500 square feet used for record 

storage; if allowed, officials report they will consolidate it into another 

larger warehouse being used at the center. The wood-framed structure 

pictured in figure 6 below is approximately 1,600 square feet and is 

currently vacant. The officials said that these outdated buildings will 

remain in GSA’s portfolio until a final determination has been made about 

their historical significance, but in the meantime GSA will continue to pay 

for maintenance and building security fees.
Page 23 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

Figure 6: GSA Held Warehouses in Lakewood, Colorado, Pending Historic Designation

With regard to location, Interior headquarters officials told us that to 

support the remote location of mission needs, buildings, including 

warehouses, may be remotely located, and that this determines whether 

consolidation is feasible. The officials noted that most field stations 

(where warehouses are located) are in remote and rural areas, and are 

geographically dispersed, which makes colocation and sharing of facilities 

with other federal agencies difficult. The remote location of these 

buildings also leads to increased costs for construction, maintenance, 

repair, and demolition since it costs more to transport materials and 

people to these locations.

With regard to vacancies, when an agency vacates space because it is 

changing locations or no longer needs the space, GSA becomes 

responsible for the overall cost and maintenance of a vacated space until 

another tenant is identified or, if the warehouse is not government owned, 

the lease is terminated or the lease’s term expires. As mentioned 

previously, NARA moved to a privately owned warehouse, and now GSA 

holds a 150,000 square-foot empty warehouse and will be responsible for 

it until it finds a new tenant. The space has been vacant for approximately 

1 year (see fig. 7). At another warehouse we visited, a U.S. Geological 

Survey (USGS) official told us USGS had vacated approximately 55,000 

square feet of warehouse space in 2013. While this vacancy reduces the

overall square footage of space held by USGS, GSA now holds an 

additional 55,000 square feet of space that it is financially responsible for 
Page 24 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

until it finds a new tenant agency. According to GSA regional officials, 

when a tenant agency vacates privately leased space, GSA is also 

responsible for continuing to pay for the space and must decide whether 

to continue to do so for the remainder of the lease or to try and buy out 

the lease from the landlord.

Figure 7: Vacant GSA Warehouse Formerly Used by the National Archives and Records Administration, Lakewood, Colorado

GSA produces monthly vacancy reports comprised of all owned and 

leased active buildings, including warehouses where GSA can assign 

space. According to GSA headquarters officials, GSA uses these reports 

for several purposes, including monitoring vacancy, researching the 

causes of vacancies, identifying assets for potential consolidation, and 

prioritizing backfill opportunities.28

 28“Backfilling” generally refers to assigning an agency to space that has been previously 

vacated by another agency in either government-owned space or leased from the private 

sector. 

This report includes information on 

whether the building is owned by the federal government or leased from 

the private sector, the rentable square footage of the building that is not 

undergoing construction or renovation, and the total percentage of the 

building that is both vacant and available for a federal tenant, among 

other items. Officials told us that there are both regional and national 

vacancy targets. The national combined target is around 3 percent, 5 
Page 25 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

percent for government-owned space, and 1.5 percent for leased space. 

Based on the May 2014 vacancy report, GSA’s combined vacancy rate 

for warehouses was 7 percent.29 GSA headquarters officials stated that 

they monitor monthly vacancy rates, and when they see increasing 

vacancy trends, they work with regional officials to identify and address 

the cause.

Environmental requirements can result in additional costs and more time 

needed for warehouse disposal. Under the National Environmental Policy 

Act, as amended, agencies are required to consider the environmental 

impact of their proposed actions, including the disposal of property, and 

consider alternatives less damaging to the environment.30 Landholding 

agencies are responsible for supervising decontamination of excess and 

surplus real property that has been contaminated with hazardous 

materials of any sort.31

Until the cleanup is completed, GSA is responsible for the warehouses, 

and they remain part of GSA’s inventory. In such cases, GSA relies on 

original property-holding agencies to complete environmental 

However, required environmental assessments 

and remediation of excess or surplus property can be expensive and time 

consuming. For example, GSA headquarters officials told us that 40

government-owned warehouses remain in excess status because the 

sites are undergoing environmental remediation and are contaminated. 

These warehouses have been listed as excess for at least 7 years and as 

long as 11 years. According to the GSA headquarters officials, these 

warehouses had all been previously held by either the U.S. Army or the 

Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and had been used to store materials for 

weapons development. The officials said that the Army and DLA vacated 

these properties because the warehouses were obsolete and that in the 

areas where the warehouses are located, there was no demand from 

other federal agencies for the space. When GSA was unable to find new 

tenants for the facilities, GSA began the disposal process.

 29As we mentioned previously, the May 2014 vacancy report provided by GSA did not 

include two warehouses included in our site visits, one of which has been vacant since at 

least 2004 and the other since 2009.

30 Pub. L. No. 91-190, 83 Stat. 852 (Jan. 1, 1970), codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. §§ 

4321-4347.

31 41 C.F.R. § 102-75.955. 

Challenges Disposing of 

Warehouse Space: 

Contamination and 

Environmental 

Remediation, Location, 

and Stakeholder Interests
Page 26 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

remediation, if necessary, prior to disposal. For example, the Curtis Bay 

Depot consists of 11 primary structures and numerous abandoned 

warehouses (along with other structures and buildings) on approximately 

435 acres of land and was previously used by DLA as a strategic 

stockpile and munitions storage. (See fig. 8.) GSA headquarters officials 

said many of the buildings at the complex are in an extremely 

deteriorated condition and that environmental and military munitions 

contamination is expected to be fully remediated sometime in fiscal year 

2016.

Figure 8: Excess GSA Warehouses in Curtis Bay, Maryland

Agencies efforts to dispose of potentially contaminated sites add time and 

costs. According to DOE headquarters officials, contamination issues 

affect DOE warehouses since they are often located on or adjacent to 

parcels with a history of contamination. Additionally, about 500 

warehouses, or 25 percent of the total number of warehouses held by the 

agency, store hazardous materials including radioactive or nuclear 

substances. These officials told us that warehouses used to store 

hazardous materials or located near contaminated sites are unlikely to 

receive their full market value through a sale, and DOE typically disposes 

of them through demolition. Interior headquarters and regional officials 

also told us that environmental remediation was a major challenge with 

disposing of warehouse space since the majority of the portfolio was 

constructed when lead and asbestos were commonly used during 

construction. Due to funding constraints, remediation and disposal of old 
Page 27 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

and underutilized assets may be delayed. Both DOE regional and Interior

headquarters officials told us that in many cases the cost of cleanup of 

old warehouses outweighs the potential sale or salvage price. Interior 

headquarters officials noted that in addition to the challenges related to 

managing historic warehouses, Interior faces additional challenges 

disposing of historic warehouses. According to the officials, section 106 of 

the National Historic Preservation Act32

Locations of some federal properties can make property disposal and 

reuse costly or undesirable. DOE headquarters officials reported that the 

vast majority of DOE’s warehouses are either 1) located within a secured 

perimeter, often on or adjacent to property with a history of contamination, 

or 2) have stored hazardous materials or, in some cases both. Officials 

said there is “rarely if ever” an opportunity to dispose of unneeded 

warehouse space through sale or some other conveyance. Instead, DOE 

typically demolishes unneeded warehouses following remediation as 

funding becomes available. For example, officials at Lawrence Livermore 

National Laboratory told us that one warehouse located within the 

secured perimeter has been listed for disposal for 7 years; however, the 

building is very low on the site’s priority list for disposal and will likely not 

be demolished for another 20 years because it is considered low risk with 

no current hazards. Given the warehouse’s location within the secured 

perimeter, officials said the only disposal option for this site is demolition. 

Likewise, Interior headquarters officials noted that the majority of the 

assets (including warehouses) are located on public lands that directly 

contribute to bureaus’ missions and cannot be easily divested. Because 

of this, the officials said there are a limited number of Interior’s assets 

eligible for disposal or sale to a private organization or individual, and 

those that are, must undergo environmental remediation (as discussed 

above), and then be demolished or salvaged for reuse at another 

location. The officials also said that due to the remote locations and cost 

of remediation, demolition, and salvage, it is rare that the residual value in 

, requires agencies to consider the 

effects of their undertakings on historic properties, including historic 

warehouses which are included in or eligible for inclusion in the National 

Register of Historic Places. This process, which involves consultation with 

stakeholders, an assessment of the effects of the disposal on the historic 

property, and possible mitigation, may also result in more time needed for 

warehouse disposal and additional costs.

 32 16 U.S.C. § 470f.
Page 28 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

the materials is adequate to attract private interests to perform the 

removal of the asset, or to obtain any monetary benefit to the federal 

government for the assets.

Stakeholder interests can also result in delays to property disposal or 

reuse. GSA works with partner federal agencies, state and local 

governments, non-profit organizations, business groups, and citizens 

when disposing of owned assets such as warehouses. As such, 

stakeholders can have differing views of what should be done with the 

property. For example, GSA holds a 33,000-square-foot governmentowned warehouse in Washington, D.C., near the Nationals baseball park, 

a warehouse that has been vacant since 2009. (See fig. 9.) The area 

surrounding this warehouse has increased substantially in value as new 

residential and commercial buildings are built. Local stakeholders have 

expressed an interest in this site, including a Washington, DC, Advisory 

Neighborhood Commission, which has proposed using the property for an 

“educational-commercial partnership” to create a new institute for culinary 

business education. As of May 2014, GSA has not come to a final 

determination regarding the future of this warehouse, but could 

presumably benefit from the appreciation of land values in this area.

Figure 9: Vacant GSA Warehouse in Washington, DC
Page 29 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

The challenges described above are similar to those we have previously 

found in relation to all excess and underutilized real property, not solely 

warehouses.33 GSA could better position itself to address these longstanding challenges by following leading practices in capital decision 

making. We have previously found that leading practices in capital 

decision making, which are practices that help inform strategic and longterm thinking about capital assets, can help address challenges agencies 

face with regard to their capital asset portfolios.34 These practices, and 

their relevance to GSA’s role as a leader in managing federal real 

property, are discussed in the next section of this report.

As mentioned above, as a landlord, GSA acquires, manages, and 

disposes real property on behalf of agencies. Consistent with GSA’s 

landlord role, which is performed primarily by GSA’s Public Buildings 

Service (PBS), GSA has taken steps to help reduce agencies’ warehouse 

real property footprint and has tried to reduce costs by moving tenants 

from leased warehouses into government-owned space. GSA has done 

so when specific situations and opportunities presented themselves. For 

example, in one region where GSA manages a federal center with 

government-owned warehouses, GSA has been helping agencies move 

to the federal center as their leases with private lessors expire. In one 

such case, officials from Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service relocated their 

storage for ecological services field work and realty program from a 

leased warehouse to two smaller warehouses: one government-owned at 

 33GAO-12-645. 

34GAO-12-646, GAO-13-744. 

GSA Has Taken 

Some Steps to Fulfill 

Its Leadership Role 

with Respect to 

Warehouses, but Its 

Approach Lacks a 

Strategic Focus

As a Government 

Landlord, GSA Has Taken 

Steps to Fulfill Its 

Leadership Role in 

Managing Warehouses
Page 30 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

the federal center and another one elsewhere, anticipating about $30,000 

in annual savings. GSA has also reduced the federal government’s 

warehouse footprint by helping agencies consolidate their existing space. 

For example, GSA officials told us they helped a tenant agency reduce its 

warehouse space from 90,000 square feet to 60,000 square feet by 

consolidating space for their different divisions rather than each division’s 

having its own space.

Further, GSA has taken steps to assist agencies in the acquisition of 

warehouse space. For example, in May 2014, GSA’s Office of Leasing 

issued internal guidance on leasing warehouses from private lessors 

using a lease model that is specifically designed to accommodate the 

special characteristics of warehouse space. According to this guidance, 

the different characteristics of warehouse space require a distinct 

approach to its procurement, including acquisition strategy, evaluation of 

offers, pricing, and paying for tenant improvements. The guidance also 

provided new flexibility to GSA regional officials to seek space and 

evaluate price by volume rather than strictly by square footage area, 

which would maximize value to the government when storage height is a 

factor. Further, GSA provided guidance on space configurations, loading 

docks, and vehicle accommodation as well as calculations for determining 

space by volume.

In its role as a landlord and helping agencies to acquire, manage, and 

dispose of real property, GSA is expected to follow capital-planning 

leading practices. Making informed capital investment decisions requires 

full information about an agency’s current and long-term needs, 

alternative courses of action, and how potential projects compare 

amongst each other. We identified leading practices for using information 

to make capital investment decisions primarily based on GAO’s Executive 

Guide35 and OMB’s Capital Programming Guide36. Leading practices in 

capital decision making include: (1) conducting a needs assessment, (2) 

conducting an alternatives evaluation, (3) developing a project 

prioritization, and (4) creating a long-term capital plan. (See fig. 10.)

 35GAO/AIMD-99-32. 

36OMB, Capital Programming Guide, Supplement to Office of Management and Budget 

Circular A-11, Part 7: Planning, Budgeting, and Acquisition of Capital Assets (June 2006).
Page 31 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

Figure 10: Leading Capital-Planning Practices for Using Information to Make Capital Investment Decisions

GSA has applied the first two capital planning leading practices—needs 

assessment and alternatives evaluation—to help agencies acquire 

warehouses.

Needs assessment. As described previously, GSA officials told us they 

typically meet agencies’ warehouse space needs by identifying storage 

specifications for warehouse contents. GSA regional officials told us that 

when looking to provide warehouse space, GSA works with customer 

agencies to understand their missions and assess their needs. Guided by 

agencies’ specific storage needs, GSA works with each agency to meet 

their needs on a case-by-case or asset-by-asset basis.

Alternatives evaluation. Next, GSA evaluates alternatives by seeking out 

available government-owned warehouse space first, given its lower cost 

to the government and ease of occupancy. If government-owned space is 
Page 32 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

not available within the tenant-specified area, GSA considers occupying 

vacant space currently leased from private lessors, and if such suitable 

space is not available, then GSA considers leasing new space from a 

private lessor. GSA regional officials told us that they also conduct 

feasibility studies—to help decision makers evaluate project 

alternatives—when warehouses or other assets are large and costly. For 

example, GSA officials told us that they were embarking on a feasibility 

study for the previously mentioned 150,000-square foot warehouse in 

Lakewood, Colorado, formerly occupied by NARA to determine the 

feasibility of converting it into office space.

In its landlord role, GSA has taken steps to apply capital-planning 

practices related to needs assessment and alternatives evaluation; 

however, GSA has done this on an asset-by-asset basis and has not 

prioritized warehouses or developed a long-term plan. GSA has about a 

third of all warehouse space among civilian agencies, totaling about 29-

million square feet. As such, managing warehouses based on priorities 

and identifying steps that benefit tenant agencies and taxpayers would 

better position GSA to fulfill its role as a steward of these assets and 

partner in helping agencies achieve their missions. It would also help 

GSA begin to overcome what are often seen as intractable challenges, 

such as a reliance on costly, long-term leasing, or taking action to dispose 

of aging and obsolete assets.

Prioritization, for example, could help GSA address obsolete warehouses 

in its inventory. As mentioned above, government-owned warehouse 

space in the GSA inventory is aging and becoming obsolete. This trend is 

likely to push even more warehouses into excess status and in need of 

disposal. GSA could prioritize warehouses to determine those in most 

critical need of an alternative plan, such as disposal. This would allow 

GSA to be proactive in managing its warehouse inventory. Furthermore, 

GSA has relied on leasing to support long-term mission needs. We have 

previously found that building ownership often costs less than leasing, 

GSA’s Approach to 

Managing Its Warehouses 

Lacks Priorities and a 

Long-term Strategy
Page 33 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

especially for long-term space needs.37 GSA officials acknowledged that 

for long-term warehouse needs, it would be more economical for the 

government to own an asset, but given current funding constraints, GSA 

tries to lease warehouse space in markets with low rental rates rather 

than with high rental rates, such as New York City or Washington, D.C. 

By analyzing and prioritizing long-term leases for conversion to 

ownership, GSA could be better positioned to make the case for funding 

that could help reduce costs for the government in the long term. In 2013, 

we similarly determined that GSA has not systematically prioritized which 

high-value leases would be most beneficial to move to federally owned 

solutions and recommended that GSA prioritize its high-value leases for 

ownership for its entire real property inventory.38

Long-term capital-planning principles applied to the warehouse portion of 

GSA’s portfolio could also help address challenges, as well as help GSA 

and the federal agencies better plan for the future. A long-term capital 

plan encourages agencies to weigh and balance the need to maintain 

existing capital assets against the demand for new assets. By thinking 

long term rather than simply from year to year, an agency can make fully 

informed choices about long-term investment needs and maximize its use 

of available funding over time. Previously, in 2012, we found that GSA 

lacked a comprehensive long-term capital plan and recommended that 

GSA agreed with this 

recommendation and has taken some steps to address it. As with its highvalue lease portfolio, GSA has not conducted such an analysis or 

prioritization of its unique and varied warehouse inventory, prioritization 

that could help GSA more efficiently address the storage needs of the 

federal government.

 37In 1995, we found that 55 of 73 operating leases that GSA had entered into cost a total 

of $700 million more than construction. In 1999, we reported that for eight of nine major 

operating lease acquisitions GSA had proposed, construction would have saved the 

government $126 million over 30 years. In 2008, we found that for four of seven GSA 

operating leases we analyzed, construction rather than leasing would have saved an 

estimated $83.3 million over 30 years. See GAO, Federal Real Property: Strategy Needed 

to Address Agencies’ Long-standing Reliance on Costly Leasing, GAO-08-197 

(Washington, D.C.: Jan. 24, 2008); General Services Administration: Comparison of 

Space Acquisition Alternatives—Leasing to Lease-Purchase and Leasing to Construction, 

GAO/GGD-99-49R (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 12, 1999); General Services Administration: 

Opportunities For Cost Savings in the Public Buildings Area, GAO/T-GGD-95-149 

(Washington, D.C.: July 13, 1995); and General Services Administration: Comparison of 

Space Acquisition Alternatives—Leasing to Lease-Purchase and Leasing to Construction, 

GAO/GGD-99-49R (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 12, 1999). 

38GAO-13-744. 
Page 34 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

GSA adapt leading practices in capital decision making by developing a 

5-year capital plan.39 GSA agreed with this recommendation, but has not 

yet developed a 5-year capital plan.40 As part of implementing this 

recommendation, assessing the long-term warehouse needs of its 

tenants would be beneficial, given the amount of warehouse space GSA 

holds and the challenges it faces with this portion of its inventory. A 

focused assessment of GSA’s total warehouse portfolio could include an 

analysis of GSA and its tenants’ needs for storage space by region; 

prioritization of long-term leases for ownership; and a determination of a 

desired combination of owned and leased warehouse inventory, its type, 

and regional makeup, over the long term.

In addition to capital planning for warehouses as it relates to GSA’s 

landlord role, GSA is uniquely positioned to provide leadership on 

warehouse issues given its government-wide policy role, in particular, its 

role to promote best practices to improve efficiency of management 

processes. GSA’s Office of Government-wide Policy (OGP) is the primary 

unit that performs such a role. Since the early 1990s, we have 

emphasized that GSA’s role was envisioned to be that of a central policy 

agency that provides strategic direction to the federal government, not 

only a service delivery organization helping agencies fulfill space needs 

on an asset-by-asset basis.41

 39

Additionally, leveraging the experiences 

gained in its role as a landlord, GSA is positioned to help federal agencies 

that manage their own warehouse space by promoting policy, developing 

guidance, and sharing lessons learned. For example, GSA’s internal 

leasing guidance issued in May 2014 could potentially have governmentwide application. While government-wide warehouse portfolio is vast, only 

16 civilian agencies hold warehouses for civilian storage needs. In 

particular, agencies that have large warehouse inventories, such as 

Interior and DOE, could benefit from GSA’s government landlord 

experience in applying capital planning leading practices to address some 

of the challenges mentioned above.

GAO-12-646. 

40GSA officials stated that they have not developed a 5-year plan due to limited funding. 

41GAO, Real Property Management Issues Facing GSA and Congress, GAO/T-GGD-92-4 

(Washington, D.C.: Oct. 13, 1991). 

GSA’s Government-Wide 

Policy Efforts Are Not 

Focused on Warehouses
Page 35 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

To fulfill its government-wide policy role under the Freeze the Footprint

policy, which calls on GSA to consult other agencies on more effective 

practices and efficient use of space, GSA has identified a number of 

innovative practices for making more efficient use of office space, but has 

not provided similar guidance to other federal agencies for efficient use of 

warehouse space. The Freeze the Footprint policy applies to both office 

and warehouse space. According to GSA headquarters officials, they 

have focused mainly on office space, and not warehouses, because real 

property cost savings mostly come from office space.

A 1999 GSA report on warehouses in the federal government exemplified 

GSA’s government-wide leadership role and discussed opportunities for 

greater efficiencies. GSA conducted an extensive review of civilian and 

defense warehouses and issued a report titled Strategic Storage Needs 

of the Federal Government.

42

In the last 15 years, the government’s practices and business processes 

have advanced, for example, incorporating e-government and direct 

delivery solutions. Further, the overall federal fiscal environment has 

changed, placing resource constraints on federal agencies to purchase 

and store items. In this climate, we believe that agencies that hold 

warehouse space would benefit from a strategic approach that not only 

reflects current fiscal constraints but also takes advantage of recent 

developments in the warehouse area outside government. The private 

warehousing industry has grown more sophisticated in recent decades, 

In this report, GSA addressed some of the 

key issues that are still relevant today, such as warehouse design and 

technology, and looked at the issue from a government-wide perspective, 

such as highlighting opportunities for space sharing among agencies. The 

report included technical aspects, covering infrastructure attributes such 

as floor load, roofing, and lighting, as well as policy aspects such as 

personal property and supply management. The report also made 

recommendations, emphasizing the nexus between real and personal 

property as well as the need for efficient space utilization. However, GSA 

officials told us that since the report was issued in 1999, they were unable 

to determine whether the report’s recommendations had been 

implemented or had a specific impact on any developments in the 

warehousing area.

 42 GSA, Strategic Storage Needs of the Federal Government (Washington D.C.: July 

1999)
Page 36 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

particularly with the advent of e-commerce, just-in-time delivery, and 

supply-chain management. According to literature on warehouse 

management, these developments created pressures for more efficient 

utilization of warehouse space. To improve warehouse functions, the 

industry has identified some principles, such as benchmarking warehouse

performance and automating warehouse functions, as well as leading 

practices in such areas as material handling, inventory control, and 

warehouse management systems. Industry experience with warehousing 

has also identified ways to maximize warehouse space within an existing 

footprint through such methods as warehouse redesign, vertical space 

utilization, and narrower aisle widths and pallet racks, among others. 

While government’s overall storage needs may be distinct from the 

private industry, some of these warehousing industry leading practices for 

maximizing space may be applicable to the government.

GSA headquarters officials told us that the agency has not provided a 

strategy for efficient use of warehouse space because it has been 

primarily focused on office space. Recent developments in the privatewarehousing industry along with current fiscal constraints of the federal 

government create opportunities for GSA to provide a strategy for more 

effective and efficient use of warehouse space government-wide. For 

example, as discussed earlier in this report, warehouse specifications and 

special conditions are based on the contents that are being stored, thus 

GSA could identify broad categories of storage types (e.g., documents, 

equipment, historical artifacts) and provide guidance on storage 

specifications, best practices, and efficiencies associated with them. 

Further, a strategy could encourage agencies to rethink their overall 

storage needs, and consolidate and colocate (share space), when 

possible. Ultimately, such an effort could contribute to a decrease in the 

government-wide warehouse footprint and—by leveraging GSA’s landlord 

experience and by defining the type of leadership GSA could provide to 

agencies as they asses their warehouse portfolios—strategically address 

some of the challenges facing federal agencies.

The federal government’s vast and diverse civilian warehouse portfolio 

presents challenges to agencies—including reliance on costly, long-term 

leasing and aging and obsolete warehouses—when acquiring, managing, 

and disposing of warehouse space. Accurate and transparent information 

is critical to addressing these challenges and making informed capitalasset decisions. GSA manages the FRPP, which was created to provide 

information for promoting efficient and economical use of the federal 

government’s real property assets. However, GSA’s interpretation of its 

Conclusions
Page 37 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

mission to provide space to federal agencies results in categorizing nearly 

all warehouses in its portfolio as active and utilized even when they are 

vacant. As the largest civilian holder of government warehouse space, 

this lack of transparency reduces the usefulness not only of GSA’s data 

but also of all warehouse portfolio data government-wide. Improved 

transparency would help GSA and others make better informed decisions 

regarding warehouse space.

In GSA’s leadership role as the government’s landlord and as a policysetting body for real property management, GSA has taken steps to help 

agencies consolidate their warehouse space and reduce their footprint. 

GSA has also followed some leading practices in capital- decision making 

to fulfill agencies’ warehouse space needs; however, GSA has applied 

these practices on a case-by-case, asset-by-asset basis. Thus, it lacks a 

strategic approach to prioritize warehouses and make long-term, informed 

decisions about government warehouse space. Further, in light of GSA’s 

aging warehouse inventory and agencies’ modern-day storage needs, 

there is potentially a growing gap between what GSA can provide from 

the government’s owned portfolio and what the tenant agencies require. 

Because the agency lacks a comprehensive 5-year capital plan, as well 

as a strategy focused on its warehouse portfolio, GSA may have limited 

ability to address this potentially growing gap as well as the abovementioned challenges facing GSA’s warehouse portfolio. Such a strategy 

would enable GSA and tenant agencies to prioritize their needs and take 

a long-term view of the warehouse inventory to support better informed 

decisions.

Similarly, in its policy role, GSA has developed initiatives and models to 

enhance the efficiency of office space; however, it has not done so for 

warehouses. As agencies work to reduce their footprint, this could be an 

ideal time to develop a strategic approach that would capitalize on 

broader trends, economies of scale, leading practices, and private 

industry experience in the warehouse area. GSA lacks a governmentwide strategy to promote effective and efficient use of government 

warehouse space, and therefore each agency must address its storage 

needs individually and may miss opportunities for consolidation or 

colocation. Developing and implementing a government-wide strategy 

could help the federal government reduce its footprint while also 

addressing some of the challenges facing federal agencies.
Page 38 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

To enhance the transparency of the FRPP data and help GSA make 

more informed decisions regarding the planning, effective and efficient 

management, and disposal of civilian warehouse assets, we recommend 

that the Administrator of GSA take the following three actions:

• In GSA’s FRPP documents, GSA should make transparent how its 

mission, which is to provide space to federal agencies, affects the 

reporting of its real property portfolio as it relates to utilization and 

status data elements.

• In GSA’s landlord role, which is performed by the Public Buildings 

Service, and as part of its efforts to address our 2012 

recommendation to develop and publish a comprehensive 5-year 

capital plan, GSA should develop and implement a strategy specific to 

warehouses. This strategy should apply capital-planning leading 

practices, involving prioritization and long-term planning, to the 

warehouse portion of GSA’s portfolio.

• In its government-wide policy role, which is performed by Office of 

Government-wide Policy, GSA should develop a strategy for its role in 

promoting effective and efficient practices in warehouse management 

across the federal government, including, but not limited to: 

warehouse management guidance that GSA could develop, lessons 

learned that GSA could promote, and the type of leadership that GSA 

could provide to agencies as they assess their warehouse portfolios.

We provided a draft of this report to the Administrator of GSA and to the 

Secretaries of Energy and the Interior for review and comment. The 

Departments of Energy and the Interior did not have comments.

GSA provided written comments on the draft, which are reprinted in 

appendix II. GSA agreed with our recommendation that it should make 

transparent in its FRPP documents how its mission affects the reporting 

of its real property portfolio. GSA stated that it appreciates that the 

complexity of the FRPP data may lead to misinterpretation, and that it 

plans to reassess the use of the status data-element categories to better 

address the status of completely vacant assets that lack a viable asset 

strategy or defined customer need.

Regarding our recommendation that GSA should develop and implement 

a strategy specific to warehouses as it develops a comprehensive 5-year 

capital plan, GSA noted several efforts in place to reduce the federal 

footprint. GSA said that it has a portfolio management program that takes 

into consideration the asset, market, and customer components for all 

assets in its inventory and that it also includes a financial diagnostic of 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation
Page 39 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

assets and segmentation of the portfolio into holding periods. GSA stated 

that in order to address the recommendation, GSA will continue to 

analyze and develop strategies for maximizing its inventory to increase 

value. As part of these efforts, a strategy specific to warehouses, as 

described in our recommendation, would help GSA make long-term, 

informed decisions about government warehouse space. In addition, such 

a strategy would enable GSA and tenant agencies to prioritize their needs 

and take a long-term view of the warehouse inventory in the support of 

better informed decisions. 

GSA agreed with our recommendation that it should develop a 

government-wide strategy to promote effective and efficient practices in 

warehouse management. GSA said it would address the recommendation 

by developing personal property guidance, researching best practices in 

warehouse and inventory management, and publishing lessons learned 

and guidance. GSA also provided technical clarifications that we

incorporated as appropriate. 

We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional 

committees, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the 

Administrator of General Services, and the Secretaries of Energy and the 

Interior. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on GAO’s 

website at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions, please contact me at (202) 512-

2834 or wised@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional 

Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. 

GAO staff who made key contributions to this report are listed in appendix 

III.

David J. Wise

Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 40 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

Our objectives were to examine (1) available information on federal 

warehouses held or leased by civilian agencies in terms of size, location, 

utilization, and purpose; (2) challenges selected civilian agencies report in 

acquiring, managing, and disposing of warehouse space; and (3) the 

extent to which GSA has fulfilled its federal real property leadership role 

with respect to warehouses. We identified three real property-holding 

agencies for our review: the General Services Administration (GSA), the 

Department of the Interior (Interior), and the Department of Energy 

(DOE). We chose GSA, Interior, and DOE because these were the three 

largest agencies in terms of total warehouse square footage of all civilian 

real property agencies that are required to submit data for the Federal 

Real Property Profile.1

To determine what is known about federal warehouses, we obtained and 

analyzed FRPP data submissions, and real property data from DOE’s 

Facilities Information Management System (FIMS) and Interior’s Financial 

and Business Management System (FBMS); visited sites where the 

agencies had reported warehouses; reviewed Federal Real Property 

Council guidance and other documents related to the agencies’ real 

property data and the FRPP database; and interviewed officials at these 

agencies. We obtained the agencies’ real property data submissions, 

which support the FRPP annual reports. To analyze FRPP data on 

warehouses held or leased by civilian agencies, we removed defense 

agencies from government-wide FRPP warehouse data and from GSA 

FRPP data identified as predominant using agencies. According to our 

conversations with agency officials and our review of FRPP, FIMS, and 

FBMS, we believe that the data contained in these databases are 

sufficiently reliable for the purpose of providing basic information on the 

size and location of warehouses. We posed questions to senior real 

property officers at the three agencies about the collecting and reporting 

of real property data and about characteristics of warehouses. To gather 

detailed examples of warehouse size, location, utilization, and purpose, 

we identified warehouses from the agencies’ FRPP, FIMS, and FBMS 

submissions and visited 30 warehouses at selected sites. We selected a 

nonprobability sample for each agency of owned and leased buildings 

that were listed as active, inactive, utilized, and unutilized. Because this is

On the basis of the data available, these three 

agencies accounted for over one-half of the warehouse square footage 

reported by civilian agencies.

 1

Based on the square footage reported in fiscal year 2012 FRPP annual report.

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 41 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

a nonprobablity sample, observations made at these site visits do not 

support generalizations about other properties described in the FRPP 

database or about the characteristics or limitations of other agencies’ real 

property data. Rather the observations made during the site visits 

provided specific, detailed examples of issues that were described in 

general terms by agency officials regarding the characteristics of 

warehouses. We focused on sites clustered around four cities: 

Washington, D.C.; Fort Worth, Texas; Denver, Colorado; and Livermore, 

California. This strategy afforded both geographic diversity and balance 

among our selected agencies while also accommodating time and 

resource constraints.

To determine what challenges, if any, selected civilian agencies face in 

acquiring, managing, and dispossessing of warehouse space, we 

interviewed headquarters and regional officials at GSA, Interior, and 

DOE. In addition we conducted the site visits mentioned above in order to 

observe warehouses and challenges agencies’ officials had identified in 

acquiring, managing, and disposing of warehouse space.

To determine the extent to which GSA has fulfilled its federal real property 

leadership role with respect to warehouses, we analyzed GSA’s 

acquisition, management, and disposition policies and practices and 

compared them with: (1) Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) 

Capital Programming Guide, and (2) GAO’s Executive Guide: Leading 

Practices in Capital Decision-Making (GAO/AIMD-99-32). We interviewed 

headquarters and regional officials about warehouse acquisition, 

management, and disposal.

We conducted this performance audit from November 2013 to November 

2014 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to 

obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for 

our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 

that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings 

and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
Appendix II: Comments from the General 

Services Administration

Page 42 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

Appendix II: Comments from the General 

Services Administration
Appendix II: Comments from the General 

Services Administration

Page 43 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property
Appendix II: Comments from the General 

Services Administration

Page 44 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property
Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 45 GAO-15-41 Federal Real Property

David Wise, (202) 512-2834 or wised@gao.gov

In addition to the contact named above, David Sausville, Assistant 

Director; Irina Carnevale, Aaron Kaminsky, SaraAnn Moessbauer, Joshua 

Ormond, Amy Rosewarne, and Crystal Wesco made key contributions to 

this report.

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff

Acknowledgments

(542228)
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