Evening star., 1941-08-09
Move 10 Decentra|ize
Federal Staffs Held
Blow 10 Real Estate
Much Office Space
Declared Wasted by
Bulky File Cases
BY RUFUS S. LUSK.

by hUfUS ,. LOSh.
The resistance of the Dupont Cir
Gle Apartment tenants against evic-
ton because of projected Govern
ment leasing of the building and
the proposal to erect the $35 900, 900
War Department Building on the
Experimental Farm site in Arlington
County have served to focus atten-
ton on the fact that the Govern
ment has not planned for additional
Office space to take care of the
rapidly growing Federal staff.
There is an intensive effort to
decentralize the activities of the
Federal Government, to move bu-
reaus from the Capital to other To-
calities in order to fill up the mil
lions of square feet of unoccupied
Office space now lying idle in cities
throughout the country. In some
cities the vacancy today runs as
high as 20 per cent of the total area
in standard Office buildings. There
is almost no city In which 1t is less
than 10 per cent. Here over SO per
cent of all Office space is rented.
Should this move to shift the
Government staff away from Wash
tngton be successful in any ap-
preciable degree it will certainly
affect real estate adversely here.
Space Wasted on Files.
peoouea IF the r,reSert contested
condition of Washington Govern
ment buildings and the acute need
for more space, those who argue
for decentralization can make many
a good point The Government has
not sought to solve this problem in
a simple fashion. 1t has rented
space wherever it could be found.
First it took over office buildings.
then hotels, garages, restaurants,
lodge halls, theaters and whatnot,
and finally apartments. The Dupont
Circle affair has brought the whole
matter to head. The present
space finding system works in a
sort of vicious circle. The Govern
ment needs working space for its
office staff. so it rents an apartment
house. puts the tenants out, then
these tenants have difficulty in find
ing a place to live, so the Govern
ment feels it must build houses to
provide accommodations for the
people it has put out of their homes.
As everybody knows who has ever
walked through a Federal building,
much floor space is taken up with
files. 1t has been estimated that
perhaps a fifth of all of the Gov
ernment space here is occupied by
dead files. When the Belasco Thea
ter was recently remodeled it was
not filled with workers but with
file cases.
In many organizations the micro
filming of records has become
standard practice. All banks, for
example, use it. The process is
simplicity itself The writer recent
ly took pictures of 10000 individual
assessment records running back IS
years. The cards from which these
photographs were made occupied
files feet high Is feet long and 2
feet deep. The film showing each
one of these 100000 by cards
occupies a space little larger than
that taken up by a standard die
tionary. If this method were adopt
ed for dead records-the Govern
ment already uses it for important
documents in the Archives Build
ing-it would release hundreds of
thousands of feet of space for work
ers.
Away From Congested Areas.
If original documents need to be
kept. why not construct special
buildings away from the congested
area purely for files? On Manhat-
tan Island, where space rents for 50
or 81 foot, it is standard practice
for business concerns to keep their
old files in Brooklyn warehouses,
where filing space can be rented for
rs cents a foot.
To date the buildings the Gov
ernment has been erecting In this
emergency are of permanent,
often monumental, character. They
take time to build, are expensive,
use up labor and materials needed
for defense work, particularly steel.
Why can't mill type or fabricated
buildings be constructed? Only two
or three stories high, a building
containing a quarter of a million
square feet could be put up in less
l. l. -
there is reasonable protection
against fire, and water spraying
systems can be installed on the roof,
which will make them usable even
on the hottest days.
The Southwest, Soldiers Home