Provide a Modern Workplace for DOL National Office

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Project Background

The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Frances Perkins Building (FPB) is a 42-year old non-historic building 

that is owned by the General Services Administration (GSA) and operated under an Operations and 

Maintenance Delegation to DOL for day-to-day operations and maintenance (e.g., utilities, custodial 

services, non-infrastructure facility repairs, and minor renovation including painting, carpets, and office 

changes). DOL and GSA have been working together since October 2014 to provide a modern workplace 

for the Department’s headquarters in Washington, DC, a need that was determined based on excessive 

costs to maintain and rent the building, an increasingly inefficient building design, and negative impact 

on mission. DOL is seeking a solution that takes advantage of its willingness to consolidate up to 6,700 

personnel in FPB and four leased locations into one location, which ultimately removes the requirement 

for significant repairs to existing FPB infrastructure, provides the agencies and their staff with efficient 

space, and reduces the footprint and related real estate costs.

Cost

Over the years, the DOL costs of maintaining the FPB have progressively increased with the age of the 

building and the cost of rent paid by DOL to GSA.

 

for approximately 2.2 

million ft2 in the National Capital Region. Consolidation of DOL offices to reduce the footprint to 

approximately 1.44 million ft2 would result in significant cost savings for the Government. 

Efficiency

Because of the inefficiency of the building design and limited opportunities to modernize the workspace, 

the DOL National Office is spread between several buildings in the National Capital Region. The FPB 

alone contains approximately 1.4 million ft2 of space; however, only 970,000 ft2 is usable. 

Opportunities to modernize the FPB to be more optimal in terms of office space and other special 

spaces (e.g., meeting space) remains limited. A modern office building would allow for more 

collaborative spaces and would accommodate a modernized DOL workforce, such as those that telework 

regularly and require less physical office space. 

A modern office building would also allow for more efficient use of utilities, such as zoned heating and 

cooling to ensure reasonable office temperatures are maintained year-round while minimizing cost. 

Currently, the FPB has a binary system that is either on or off – causing extreme temperature variations 

throughout the building during working hours and the inability to cost-effectively heat or cool a 

particular office or portion of the building during non-working hours (e.g., end of year procurement 

activities or other special projects).

Mission Need

The DOL National Office is not co-located into one cohesive physical location. The Agency Heads of the 

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), as well as their 

staff, are physically located outside of the FPB in their own rented space. There have been challenges 

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Provide a Modern Workplace for DOL National Office

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when working to implement departmental initiatives inclusive of all agencies or to establish one 

departmental culture in support of the DOL mission due in part to these physical barriers. 

Several DOL agencies also require modular conference spaces to hold large events for compliance and 

other mission-related training and activities. The FPB has limited space for events such as these and the 

space that is available is not modernized to easily accommodate requests (e.g., break-out rooms, 

wireless Internet for visiting DOL staff from regional/field locations). Although there is preference to 

conform agency activities to fit into the FPB, agencies spend substantial funds to facilitate events at 

locations that have these modern capabilities. .

Lastly, a large volume of DOL employees have commented on the poor quality of the workspace in the 

DOL headquarters Frances Perkins Building, to include: aging infrastructure, climate control, and the 

need for improved modern capabilities. . The Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) further 

supports employees’ negative sentiments about the FPB1 to support the performance of their jobs.

Project Milestones

Despite numerous obstacles throughout the planning process, the Department has actively pursued 

every opportunity to accelerate this project in coordination with GSA. 

Completed

Expression of Interest from Real Estate Market for Exchange Project

GSA recommended the Department pursue a building exchange, similar to the FBI J. Edgar Hoover 

Building exchange, as a means of disposing of the current property and acquiring a new 

building/location. This exchange construct was proposed as a means of securing a modern workplace 

without appropriated funds, which was judged to be more timely and practical than the traditional 

renovation of the existing building. The traditional federal renovation approach is determined by GSA 

and DOL to be: too lengthy (i.e., extends the project to 2031 in the best case scenario); too expensive 

(i.e., five renovation phases that involve swing space leases and other activities is estimated at more 

than $1 billion); and too risky (i.e., assumes continual funding for the project and no lapse in 

appropriations in any given year, which is unlikely).

GSA released the Request for Expression of Interest (REOI) and a Notice of Intent (NOI) to the market on 

December 21, 2015. Responses were received on January 27, 2016 from several viable offerors

interested in the exchange project. Meetings with these offerors have occurred over the past several 

months further confirming their interest in the exchange. On September 9, 2016, additional information 

was provided to the offerors by GSA for market research purposes to gauge their interest in the 

exchange, specifically: 2016 site survey, title and massing study; summary of DOL requirements; and 

2014 Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) Phase I. Additional studies (i.e., updated ESA Phase I, an ESA 

Phase II, if necessary, and a structural engineering report) will be provided to the offerors, once 

completed.

 1 The FEVS includes a question (#14) that asks the employee to rate the “physical conditions (e.g., noise level, 

temperature, lighting, cleanliness in the workplace) [that] allow employees to perform their jobs well.”
Provide a Modern Workplace for DOL National Office

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Project Documentation

An appraisal of the Frances Perkins Building in the spring of 2016, as well as a title search, site survey 

and massing study (i.e., how much building density the site can accommodate) were conducted by DOL 

and GSA. Also completed was the DOL program of requirements (POR), which details the Department’s 

building and space needs. DOL has facilitated numerous meetings with GSA (i.e., interior designers and 

architects) and departmental stakeholders, to include Administrative Officers and agency leadership, to 

gather their input on current and projected space utilization based on mission and other agency-specific 

requirements. This information was combined with feedback from the employee listening sessions and 

other employee engagement mechanisms (e.g., annual GSA Building Tenant Survey) to inform the 

Department’s requirements for a modern headquarters site. To illustrate the level of effort involved—

the POR is some 400 pages and includes numerous additional exhibits.

Financial Model & Business Case

A joint-GSA/DOL panel reviewed the offerors interested in the DOL exchange project and determined 

that all were viable candidates for bidding on the exchange offer. GSA is proposing that the next step as

a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) that would only look at the financial and organizational capabilities of 

potential offerors. DOL believes that GSA should directly issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) to allow the 

market place to respond and provide proposals on the validity of the exchanged model. Evaluations of 

contract vendor financial and organization qualifications, therefore, would take place as part of the RFP 

process. GSA stopped progress at this juncture due to a variety of concerns: lessons learned by GSA 

from the Federal Triangle South project (which was cancelled earlier in the year by GSA because the 

offers were determined to be financially unacceptable), the perceived low appraisal value of the Frances 

Perkins Building property, and GSA’s reluctance to further test the market. DOL escalated this issue to 

GSA and OMB leadership. As a result, a financial model was developed to estimate the value of the 

exchange option to inform a business case. The business case evaluated four options: 1) full renovation 

of the FPB; 2) exchange FPB for a new facility; 3) long-term lease solution; and 4) interim lease solution 

with purchase option. Although GSA recommended to pursue the interim lease solution with purchase 

option, DOL was able to demonstrate that the FPB exchange could result in a surplus and was worth 

pursuing. On September 7, 2016, OMB convened a meeting with senior leadership and determined to 

move forward with the FPB exchange. 

In-Process

RFP – Phase I

GSA has agreed to initiate a two-phase procurement strategy for the FPB exchange, beginning with 

issuance of the RFP – Phase I on December 19, 2016. In order to issue the RFP – Phase I solicitation, GSA 

has agreed to the following preparative activities: complete the REOI procurement process to identify 

the short list of viable sites that meet the qualifications for exchange with the FPB; notify the offerors of 

selection to proceed to next phase of the procurement process; and initiate the NEPA process on the 

selected sites. Following the qualification of offerors in review of the RFP – Phase I submissions, and 

completion of the draft the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for each site, GSA will issue the RFP – 

Phase II, estimated for summer of 2017.

 

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