Updated, 2/27, 10:20 p.m.
The federal government intends to sell about 20 of the buildings it owns in Colorado, including the Cesar Chavez building in Denver’s Golden Triangle neighborhood.
CPR News obtained a new list from multiple sources that shows which buildings owned by the U.S. General Services Administration the agency considers “core” and which are “non-core.” The list was kept in a shared spreadsheet that local GSA employees monitored for updates from agency leaders in Washington, D.C.
The GSA, which owns and leases buildings for other federal agencies, plans to dispose of what it deems non-core assets and move affected workers “into privately owned leased space,” according to an internal GSA presentation CPR News also obtained.
The presentation outlines the agency’s broader goal of slashing its portfolio of leased and owned buildings by half in the name of cutting costs — a cause championed by President Donald Trump and his adviser, Elon Musk. Core buildings tend to be courthouses and other specialty buildings that have to be owned by the government, the presentation says.
This week, senior GSA officials in Washington decided to categorize most of the Federal Center buildings as core after an appeal from local staff, according to an agency official that is not authorized to speak publicly.
About 3 million of the Federal Center’s 4 million square feet of building space, including the U.S. National Science Foundation Ice Core Facility, are now considered core, the list shows.
“It's a relief to some extent,” said Denise Maes, who oversaw the GSA’s work in 16 states, including the Rocky Mountain region, during the last two years of the Biden administration. Maes had worried the Trump administration was going to sell off the entire Federal Center.
A GSA spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Here’s what’s still on the chopping block
Denver’s Cesar Chavez building is the highest-profile building on the GSA’s new non-core list in the state. The 10-story, 180,000 square foot facility was built in the 1980s and renovated about a decade ago. Some seven agencies and 400 employees occupy the building, the GSA website says.
“I have spent a lot of time in that building, and it's a great building,” Maes said.
Other properties earmarked for sale, according to the GSA’s internal list obtained by CPR News, include a surface parking lot and two parking garages in downtown Denver and an office building in Fort Collins that houses workers from agencies including the Social Security Administration, Internal Revenue Service, and the U.S. Postal Service.
More than a dozen buildings at the Denver Federal Center, and a few pieces of land, were also marked “non-core.” Many of the buildings are relatively small and decades old. The largest, however, is quite notable: the towering 14-story Building 67, which was commissioned by long-time Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Floyd Dominy in the 1960s.
Dominy, who oversaw the construction of dams across the West, demanded a “building like a dam” when Building 67 was built, he told Cadillac Desert author Marc Reisner.
Maes said the federal government could have trouble selling properties on the Federal Center because it’s a secure campus full of aging buildings that need various levels of maintenance and investment.
“This whole notion of, ‘Now we can dispose of these properties,’ is a heck of a lot easier said than done,” she said. “Especially when you're talking at the Denver Federal Center.”
Editor's Note: This story has been updated to more accurately reflect the tenants of the buildings. A previous post has incorrect information located on the GSA's website.
