Recent lease deals show the federal government is working to reduce the amount of office space it uses across the country. Now, President-elect Donald Trump's promises to cut the size of the government workforce are adding to concerns of owners that demand could fall further.
Trump announced this week the formation of the Department of Government Efficiency to "dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies." He's tapping Tesla CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to lead DOGE.
No one knows for certain what will happen with office space leased to federal agencies, but some organizations are beginning to sound the alarm. Any moves along these lines will affect investors, owners and property managers, who are likely to be monitoring the situation closely.
A new report from a financial services firm owned and operated by veterans warned that federal agencies will use less leased space as they slowly return to offices in the nation's capital. That could lead to financial trouble for commercial mortgage-backed securities, according to a report published Nov. 7 by Academy Securities.
"Large reductions of office space in Washington, D.C., are introducing significant term rollover risk to CMBS deals with exposures to properties in the area,” according to the report by the firm that focuses on capital markets and asset management. What's more, upcoming General Services Administration lease expirations could result in higher office vacancies if they're not renewed, Academy's Stav Gaon told CoStar News.
The effects aren't limited just to D.C. Other office markets with GSA leases could also be affected, added Gaon, the firm's head of securitized products research and strategy.
Changes on way
Even so, the effect could be dramatic in the nation's capital. Federal agencies combined are the largest office tenant in the D.C. market. Some of them plan to make cuts to office space in and around the District, according to a report in August by the Office of Management and Budget. That smaller federal footprint, driven in part by the rise of remote working and a focus on space use, could have implications to securities that ripple across markets.
"At the end of the day, we mostly want CMBS investors to be aware of these imminent risks,” Gaon said. “Landlords are certainly in the mix as well because they don't want to start missing payments on their commercial mortgages and risk losing the property."
In February, more than 400,000 federal employees were required to be in the office two to three days per week, and the mandates cover about 120,000 more people. At the beginning of 2024, 16 federal agencies had announced return-to-office mandates, but their precise attendance policies varied, according to a report from brokerage JLL.
Meanwhile, as Trump plans for his return to the White House, exactly what changes may come to the makeup of the federal workforce, and how that would affect the utilization of office space in the District, remains to be seen.
Late Tuesday, Trump's announcement that Musk and Ramaswamy would lead DOGE seemed to fortify the president-elect's plans to cut costs. Musk has called for slashing $2 trillion in federal spending, and if his past actions are any indication, he likely would target office costs. As owner of X, the social media channel formerly called Twitter, he personally cut expenses by reducing office costs from San Francisco to New York.
"You might even make the argument that risk is going to increase, especially with the new administration,” said Gaon, who explained that things are still up in the air and that it was very early to make any firm predictions.
In response, Karoline Leavitt, the Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman, said in an email that “the American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver."
Trump has discussed the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education in his party’s official policy platform, a move that could ultimately lead to GSA needing even less office space moving forward.
He has also said that upon retaking the nation’s highest office, he would reinstitute an executive order that granted him authority to reshape the classification of federal employees and make them more easily removable, a power he said he would wield “very aggressively.”
Trump had signed an order, commonly referred to as Schedule F, to do just that but President Joe Biden rescinded it in 2021. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management announced in April a final rule to clarify protections for career civil servants.
Trump also pledged on his campaign website in 2023 to move up to 100,000 government positions out of Washington. A report in September from the Congressional Research Service noted that more than 162,000 federal civilian employees work in the nation’s capital.
Rollover risk
A prospectus on the Federal Trade Commission’s lease at Constitution Center, at 400 Seventh St. SW, shows the government plans to cut leased space by around 64,000 square feet to 179,000 square feet. It said the current lease expires in February 2027. A $398 million loan matures in March 2032, according to Academy Securities. In early 2022, the building owner refinanced the property with a $450 million loan from Morgan Stanley Bank, according to CoStar data.
That lease prospectus shows the overall space usage rate dropping from 182 to 126, and the usable square feet per person decreasing from 278 to 200.
Some landlords have been able to negotiate with the government to avoid a complete withdrawal by agencies from certain offices. Fannie Mae announced this year it would keep its space in Midtown Center in downtown Washington, albeit with a smaller total footprint.
The downsizing and shuffling of federal tenants has also hit Lafayette Centre, a three-building office campus at 1120 20th St. NW and 1133 and 1155 21st St. NW in Washington, D.C., that contains approximately 790,000 square feet of space.
"This is definitely very, very similar risk,” Gaon said.
A $243 million loan on the property recently transferred to special servicing for imminent monetary default. The largest tenant, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, is vacating nearly 293,000 square feet upon its lease expiration next year, according to CMBS data.
The commission is moving its headquarters from its three-decade-old home in the West End to more than 147,000 square feet at Patriots Plaza III at 355 E. St. SW in D.C. for 10 years with a 10-year option. There, the commission is taking only 143,000 square feet, less than half the space it is vacating, according to the CMBS data.
The special servicer on the Lafayette Centre loan has executed a pre-negotiation letter with the owning borrowers on potential loan workout, according to CoStar data.
The property's ownership group that includes GIC Real Estate and Korea Investment Corp. did not respond to requests for additional information.
Climbing vacancies
Lafayette Centre's vacancy rate has climbed from a low of 5.7% in the fourth quarter of 2019 to 23.8% currently. Cushman & Wakefield this week updated the listing availability for Three Lafayette as being totally available. That takes the availability rate of Lafayette Center to more than 65%, according to CoStar data.
In addition, the loan special servicer has noted there is no leasing traction at this time for a potential replacement tenant for the CFTC space, according to CMBS data.
Other landlords with heavy exposure to federal agency tenants are also seeing erosion in occupancy, and it's not just in buildings located around the nation's capital.
NGP Group in McLean, Virginia, just outside of Washington, owns a portfolio of 41 properties across the country leased to federal tenants. The 2.58 million-square-foot portfolio is financed with a $660 million CMBS loan originated in 2015.
At the time of the loan, the portfolio was 100% leased, all to federal tenants. Its lease rate was still at 100% four years ago, according to bond rating firm S&P Global. The portfolio is currently 92.7% occupied.
S&P lowered its ratings last month on the CMBS deal holding the loan on the portfolio.
“The lower occupancy coupled with weak office submarket fundamentals and higher operating expenses has led us to assess lower net cash flow and expected-case value for the portfolio, which we do not expect to reverse before the loan maturity in August 2025,” S&P wrote in disclosing the downgrade.
According to the June 30 rent roll, while the GSA has renewed a majority of the space rolling through 2024, that NGP Group portfolio occupancy still dropped, according to S&P. Specifically, the Department of Veterans Affairs vacated 7600 Metropolis Drive, the Met Center Bldg 5, in Austin, Texas, on Sept. 30. NGP Group representatives did not respond to a request for additional information.
NGP has four federal government agency leases expiring through 2026 totaling a little more than 207,000 square feet, according to the GSA.
This story was updated Nov. 14 with a response from the Trump transition team.