GSA Administrator Ed Forst, flanked by OPM Director Scott Kupor and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, announces a relocation of his agency during a press conference on April 20.

GSA Administrator Ed Forst, flanked by OPM Director Scott Kupor and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, announces a relocation of his agency during a press conference on April 20. Frank Konkel / Government Executive

GSA and OPM will soon share the same headquarters

The General Services Administration will temporarily move into the Office of Personnel Management’s building before both agencies ultimately transfer to a renovated GSA headquarters.

The leaders of the General Services Administration and Office of Personnel Management on Monday announced that their agencies will co-locate in the same renovated Washington, D.C., headquarters building beginning in December 2028 as part of the Trump administration’s initiative to reduce the amount of real estate that the federal government occupies

“This is bigger than a relocation. This is a blueprint,” said GSA Administrator Edward Forst at a press conference. “It's a blueprint for a government that takes responsibility, that works collaboratively and delivers results. At GSA that's our mission, and today we're going to lead by example.”

In July, GSA staffers will temporarily move caddy corner from their current location into OPM’s Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building while the GSA headquarters is renovated. When that overhaul is complete, both agency workforces will move into the refurbished GSA building. OPM’s current headquarters will then be sold or otherwise disposed of. 

OPM Director Scott Kupor on Monday said he was excited by the prospect of the federal government’s HR and real estate agencies more easily collaborating. 

“We will be very tightly packed for the next couple of years, but it's going to be great,” he said. “The buzz in that building is going to be amazing, like it's never been.”

Forst said that there is not yet an expected price for the GSA renovation, as officials are still completing preliminary plans and design estimates. He added that nearly 40% of the current GSA headquarters is uninhabitable.  

GSA officials said that Congress will need to approve the renovation plans but that there is funding available to take initial steps

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who has backed the Trump administration’s efforts to sell underutilized federal buildings, said at Monday’s announcement that co-locating GSA and OPM could serve as a model governmentwide. 

“I'm so grateful that we see this type of collaboration, especially when it comes to GSA and OPM. They're not telling others to do what they are unwilling to do themselves,” she said. “So they are leading the way through this collaboration, through the combination of their two spaces.” 

During Trump’s first term, there was an abandoned attempt to combine GSA and OPM into one agency. While the two agencies are set to share the same building, Kupor said that there are no plans to merge the two organizations.

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