


President Donald Trump’s administration released, then retracted, a list of federal buildings across the United States that could be put up for sale as it looks to fulfill the campaign promise of downsizing the federal government.
The General Services Administration released a list of hundreds of properties it was considering selling but retracted it less than a day later. The webpage, which previously contained a “non-core” property list of 433 buildings, now says a list will be “coming soon.”
Recommended Stories
- Trump administration gives automakers one month reprieve from tariffs
- WATCH LIVE: Karoline Leavitt holds White House press briefing after Trump joint address
- Four feisty moments from Trump's address to Congress
“We are identifying buildings and facilities that are not core to government operations, or non-core properties, for disposal,” the page now reads.
The now-defunct list has hundreds of federal government buildings that the Trump administration appears to be open to selling. Most of the federal buildings listed were in the Washington, D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area including large buildings and agency headquarters of the Justice Department, FBI, and Agriculture Department.
Michigan was the next state with the most listed buildings, with 26. The country’s third-largest city, Chicago, had 11 buildings on the list, two of which were in its downtown “Loop.”
“It makes sense to right-size on occasion, but this just isn’t the way to do it — sort of indiscriminately, without any thought, any analysis, any study,” said Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL), whose district encompasses parts of Chicago. “I think it’s going to be a tragic lesson in civics for the American people, a reminder that federal workers do important things.”
In New York City, some properties on the list included buildings used by the U.S. delegation to the United Nations, which overlooks the U.N. Headquarters, and two downtown buildings that house offices for federal prosecutors with the Southern District of New York and the IRS.
It is unclear what the market would be to buy these buildings. Many U.S. cities have struggled to get their business centers back to prepandemic levels of activity, and the value of commercial office spaces appears to have decreased.
In St. Louis, for example, one building was sold for $3.6 million in 2024 after being sold for $205 million in 2006. The office tower’s value over those 18 years dropped from about $140 to $2.50 on a cost-per-square-foot basis, according to an analysis from CoStar.
The list of properties to be sold also comes after Trump signed an executive order requiring all federal workers to return to the office five days a week, regardless of any telework agreements or whether those agreements were in place before the pandemic.
HERE ARE THE LAWSUITS TARGETING TRUMP’S EXECUTIVE ORDERS
Many federal agencies downsized their physical offices during the pandemic, and some workers have reported returning to the office without a proper desk or workspace as a result.
“There was very little prep and planning and it was messy with equipment,” a Health and Human Services staffer told CNN, noting that there were reports of Wi-Fi and electricity not working.