Peter Grant
Appearances
WSJ What’s News
DOGE’s Next Target: Government Office Space
By and large, with a shrinking government, a shrinking workforce, things do not look good for Washington in the immediate future.
WSJ What’s News
DOGE’s Next Target: Government Office Space
Well, it is a small amount compared with the overall office market, but the government is one of the largest tenants in the U.S., and it does have operations throughout the country. Obviously, most of the operations are in the Washington, D.C. area where the impact of a contraction would be felt the most, but the government is in many, many, many cities, and even adding 1% or 2%
WSJ What’s News
DOGE’s Next Target: Government Office Space
of office space to these markets could have an impact, especially considering how hard the office market has been hit in recent years.
WSJ What’s News
DOGE’s Next Target: Government Office Space
D.C. was one of the hardest hit markets, primarily because the return to office by government workers was particularly slow. And there's just a lot of underutilized space. And there was a lot of surplus space even before the pandemic in D.C. So it was never that great. But the vacancy level soared during the pandemic and has really not come back. But by and large, D.C.
WSJ What’s News
DOGE’s Next Target: Government Office Space
is going to get hurt on a number of different levels by all this obsolete space. And it's going to hurt the government because of tax collections. It's going to hurt small businesses because if workers aren't there, they're not going to be going out to bars and restaurants and stores.
WSJ What’s News
DOGE’s Next Target: Government Office Space
Well, New York has a lot of U.S. government offices. Ohio has a lot of U.S. government offices. Denver does. They're really all over the country. And it does seem the Department of Government Efficiency has its target on a lot of these offices, especially the ones that are underutilized as a way of saving money.
WSJ What’s News
DOGE’s Next Target: Government Office Space
There is a little bit of push and pull here. On one hand, it would be good for the office market if the government does require workers to come back into the office at a higher rate than they were attending the office during the Biden administration.
WSJ What’s News
DOGE’s Next Target: Government Office Space
On the other hand, the fact is that they are cutting employees and shrinking the government at a much higher rate than they're requiring people to be back in the office. So it's overall negative for office space.