SAVANNAH, Ga. — A federal government building in downtown Savannah is officially slated for demolition as part of the U.S. General Services Administration’s push to reduce the federal real estate portfolio.

The Juliette Gordon Low Building A at 120 Barnard St., on Telfair Square’s northeastern trust lot, is slated for demolition starting May 25. GSA has cited multiple recurring maintenance issues and the lack of a foreseeable federal tenant as reasons for the demolition.

“After an evaluation of the building’s current condition and its long-term viability for federal use, GSA has concluded the building is not suitable for continued use due to significant deferred maintenance requirements,” a GSA spokesperson stated.

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson announced the news at a press conference, adding that GSA’s decision requires no permissions or permitting from the city of Savannah. Juliette Gordon Low Building A is not a contributing structure within Savannah’s Downtown Historic District. Contributing resources are buildings or sites that add to architectural or historic value that makes a district significant.

Demolition is expected to take three months, and GSA has plans to restore the site with grass and landscaping, according to a GSA memo shared with the city of Savannah and obtained by the Savannah Morning News. GSA also plans to extend security fencing from the nearby Tomochichi Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse as well as install exterior lighting and security cameras at the site, according to the memo.

Multiple traffic impacts are anticipated during demolition, including full closure of State Street between Whitaker Street and Barnard Street for two to four weeks, the memo states.

“We recognize we may not be able to control what happens, but we can make sure that the public knows what we know,” Johnson said.

The building is currently unoccupied by any federal services. Recently, it has been used as construction offices during a renovation of the Tomochichi complex, the GSA spokesperson stated. Specific deferred maintenance issues at Juliette Gordon Low Building A include recurring roof leaks, a nonfunctional elevator, plumbing problems, and an aged HVAC system with limited function, according to GSA.

The Trump administration has sought to “right-size” the federal government’s real estate portfolio. The effort was launched in April 2025 via an executive order aimed at allowing agencies to assess office space based on cost-effectiveness and “mission suitability,” according to a White House fact sheet.

GSA manages roughly 363 million square feet of space across 8,397 buildings, including courthouses and post offices in addition to office buildings, according to GSA’s website. The agency stated in a Jan. 20 press release that it has disposed of 90 properties and reduced its portfolio by 3 million square feet.

Juliette Gordon Low Building A is the first known planned demolition in Savannah during Trump’s second administration.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the Savannah Morning News and then was distributed on the USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.

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THA Architecture principal Charles Dorn learned a lot about life on the margins between two countries while traveling last fall and winter along the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico.

Dorn visited a series of border checkpoints for motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists in both the southern and northern U.S. as part of the Portland firm’s contract with the U.S. General Services Administration to help improve the crossings.

“Every one is a story,” he said. “It was a lot of driving – thousands of miles of driving. A lot of people here thought it was a hardship. Frankly, it was enlightening.”

Dorn and other firm staffers were tasked with providing design expertise for way-finding and signage upgrades at 17 U.S. border checkpoints. To inform this feedback, he felt it was important to experience in person the regions surrounding the checkpoints THA was contracted to work on in Vermont, New York, North Dakota, Idaho, Washington, Montana, California, Texas and New Mexico.

“The most fascinating thing is visiting all these communities,” Dorn said.

This is one of the best approaches an architect can take to working on border crossing upgrades, said Ramon Riesgo, GSA director of projects for the 47 checkpoints the federal agency operates along the border between the U.S. and Mexico. The GSA also manages 121 other checkpoints, known as land ports of entry, along the Canadian border.

“You have to understand the community,” Riesgo said. “Every land port of entry is different because of the community.”

Since 1999, the GSA has invested heavily in various technology and security upgrades to aging and increasingly trafficked border crossings on both sides of the country as well as renovations and replacement projects. The agency has called on architecture firms like THA through its to assist with these projects and find ways to make the checkpoints more efficient, including meeting Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design certification requirements.

Approximately 290,000 cars, 25,000 trucks and 114,000 pedestrians pass through the U.S.’s northern and southern border checkpoints each day, Riesgo said.

“Our land ports of entry are pretty busy,” he said. “When you look at a land port of entry you have to look at it as an element of a transportation-wide system between two countries. The border in the last 20 years has become a large economic engine.”

But the average checkpoint was built more than 40 years ago, and many need to be brought up to current standards, Riesgo said.

“A lot of them were built in a different era with different needs in terms of security and in terms of trade,” he said. “We had to invest in making the ports of entry more efficient and also (meet) the enhanced need for new technology.”

The projects often come with a range of challenges, including extreme climate conditions and remote locations, Riesgo said. Designing improvements to border crossings also involves careful consideration of the dynamics of border regions, he said. Security concerns, the needs of nearby communities in both countries and the economic impacts of commerce and tourism travel across the border all factor into the design decisions.

“Working at the border, you have to be flexible, you have to have initiative and you have to be multitalented,” Riesgo said.

Dorn said he approached THA’s border crossing projects with interest because it differs greatly from the firm’s other work.

“It’s a weird project for an architect,” he said. “It’s definitely expanding outside the comfort zone of the architects. There are issues related to the demographics. It’s a transportation-oriented design problem that we’re not usually accustomed to.”

THA’s work on border crossings dates back to 1995, when the firm designed a to the Pacific Highway Port of Entry in Blaine, Wash. The project was completed in 2000.

More recently, THA staffers completed a master plan and design for a at the Juarez-Lincoln Land Port of Entry in Laredo, Texas to accommodate an increased amount of bus traffic passing through the checkpoint. GSA officials are in the process of hiring a general contractor for the project.

Last year, the GSA extended a contract with THA for the firm to assist installation of dynamic LED signage in English, Spanish and French at more border crossings following a successful pilot of the technology in Blaine.

Dorn said the project has involved figuring out the best way to move travelers through the checkpoints, such as adding lanes or more descriptive signage, based on the most common type of traffic passing over the border in that region. He quickly learned that factor varied greatly depending on the checkpoint’s location. One border crossing he visited was often used by Americans seeking medical treatment in Mexico while another primarily served diplomats and dignitaries. The Laredo bus processing facility THA designed will mostly serve Mexican workers traveling into the U.S. for temporary jobs while border crossings into Canada from Idaho and Montana are often used by tourists, Dorn said.

For all of the crossings, he strove to improve the visitor experience.

“It’s also a situation where most people are pretty tense,” Dorn said. “The idea is to make it a less stressful, a more humane approach.”

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Prospective tenants are continuing to pursue opportunities in the Block 300 building as it is repositioned as creative office space.

Slightly fewer than three months since Portland startup Puppet Labs signed a lease agreement to occupy 75,000 square feet in the building at 308 S.W. Second Ave., a Virginia-based event management software provider is signing one for 14,000 square feet. Cvent Inc. presently occupies a space half that size in the close-in eastside, according to an announcement by Jones Lang LaSalle.

The 360,000-square-foot Block 300 has been undergoing a multimillion-dollar renovation since late 2013, when the General Services Administration vacated more than 150,000 square feet. In addition to ripping out many traditional, stuffy Class A office materials (such as acoustical ceilings and carpets), crews are renovating the lobby and other common areas. Also, energy efficiency is being increased in the building.

Now, 85 percent of Block 300 is occupied, according to Jones Lang LaSalle. Mark Friel, Jake Lancaster and Buzz Ellis of Jones Lang LaSalle represented the building’s owners – a joint venture between Chicago-based Kaufman Jacobs, Starwood Capital Group and JPMorgan – in the transaction. Craig Reinhart of Cresa Portland represented Cvent.

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The auction of the U.S. Custom House closed Monday, and the apparent winner came in with a bid of $4.74 million – nearly doubling the purchase price of the sale that fell through last year.

The General Services Administration will not reveal the identity of the winning bidder until the transaction is finalized, according to a GSA spokeswoman.

The 111-year-old landmark at 220 N.W. Eighth Ave. comes with a significant backlog of deferred maintenance that prevented the last auction winner, local real estate company PREM Group, from closing on its $2.5 million deal.

Since 2004, the GSA has made several unsuccessful attempts to sell the four-story, Second Renaissance Revival-style building. In 2010, the GSA planned to transfer the building to The International School, but the group ultimately decided to withdraw its application.

The building will likely need extensive renovations, which could run up to $17 million, according to cost estimates collected by PREM Group. Points of concern include major seismic weaknesses, asbestos and violations of the current Americans with Disabilities Act codes. The Custom House also is on the National Register of Historic Places, which means the owners must preserve its historic character.

The winning bidder has 10 days to contact the GSA and make a 10 percent deposit, at which point their identity will be released.

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Portland’s historic U.S. Custom House at 220 N.W. Eighth Ave. is up for grabs once again, but some local experts are not enthusiastic about redevelopment options for the 110-year-old landmark.

After a three-week auction last year, local real estate company won the U.S. Custom House with a bid of $2.5 million. But the firm recently failed to close on the deal and the U.S. General Services Administration opted to begin another public sale process.

“It’s a tough project,” said Jacob Johnson, a spokesman for PREM Group. “It comes with a lot of unknowns, and between seismic, environmental and just historical layout of the project, it poses a lot of unknown costs.”

The 78,838-square-foot building was constructed in 1901 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but it also has a significant backlog of deferred maintenance. Johnson said the cost estimates for necessary improvements ranged from $2 million to $17 million, and the deal ultimately fell through when it became apparent that financing would have been too expensive or too prolonged for the GSA‘s time frame.

“Rarely do our sales fall through, but in this economy and real estate market, it’s a contingency we have to deal with,” GSA spokeswoman Stephanie Kenitzer said. “And as it happens in the commercial and private sector, it happens on the federal front too.”

The building has major seismic weaknesses, but it also is plagued with asbestos and needs work to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Plus, energy use in the vast concrete and steel building is significantly inefficient.

And according to one of Portland’s most successful developers, finding a tenant will become increasingly difficult as the building remains vacant.

“There’s more hair on it all the time now; that’s the problem,” said Joe Weston, developer of hundreds of apartments in Portland’s Pearl District and around the region.

Weston bid on the U.S. Custom House last year, but said he wouldn’t bid on it again.

“Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise that we didn’t get it,” he said. “Bringing it up to code hits you hard. That’s what’s killing every transaction.”

PREM Group will keep its offices at Northwest 12th Avenue and Flanders Street. The company planned to use the considerably larger U.S. Custom House to better accommodate the 20 to 30 weekly meetings it hosts for various neighborhood associations, trade groups and others.

Vast floors, high ceilings and neoclassic grandeur make the U.S. Custom House tough to repurpose, according to Chet Orloff, urban studies professor at Portland State University and director emeritus at the Oregon Historical Society.

“It’s the perfect wrong size,” Orloff said. “(The U.S. Custom House) was designed in an era when the government was building large buildings that were really meant for almost a single use, which is probably why it’s so difficult for developers to redevelop the building and remodel it.”

Other than short-term leases for film and television productions, including TNT’s “Leverage” and NBC’s “Grimm” recently, the building has been vacant for approximately six years, according to the GSA. The most recent tenant was the Northwestern Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“You’ve got to have someone buy it who loves architecture and wants to see it there,” Weston said. “It’s a nice building, but only the government can afford to own it.”

The GSA hosted its first open house on Tuesday; another is planned for Dec. 8. A new round of online bidding will open Dec. 1, with a minimum bid of $250,000.

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Lake Oswego-based Otak, an urban design, architecture, planning and engineering firm, is now a one-stop shop for contractors working with the federal government.

Otak has been awarded two contracts from the federal government’s General Services Administration to provide environmental consulting services and geographic information systems services to contractors working with federal government projects. The contract has a five-year lifespan, with three five-year renewal options.

The contracts, called Schedule 899, were developed to assist federal customers in purchasing products and services. They contain pre-negotiated prices, delivery terms and other conditions. Prices have been deemed fair and reasonable by the government, and contracts are in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, which reduces evaluation time and cost associated with requests for proposals and negotiating terms of contracts.

Tom Hamann, a principal at Otak, said the contract is one of the largest and most sophisticated federal contracts the firm has ever received. The company looks forward to meeting and exceeding the expectations of customers within the federal agencies, he said.

Under the contract, Otak can offer services such as site-specific visual mitigation plans, public outreach, site master planning, transportation planning, developing environmental impact statements, GIS mapping and cartography, and data interpretation.

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Procurements by the General Services Administration account for 11 percent of all federal government contracts. And the GSA is looking to spend its money on small, sustainable businesses.

The GSA, which manages the federal government’s entire building portfolio, has launched its , which will require businesses contracted with the GSA to report their greenhouse gas emissions. In exchange, the GSA plans to provide incentives for businesses to reduce their waste and pollution. How that relationship will work, however, is not set yet; GSA officials are traveling around the country to listen to business owners’ thoughts on how the agency can make greenhouse gas reporting, and government contracts, more attractive.

On Tuesday, officials met with small business owners in Portland, at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

“The federal government has an opportunity and responsibility to foster innovation,” said Michelle Moore, the Obama administration’s federal environmental executive. “We want to be the customer who turns an idea into a business that creates jobs. Using greenhouse gases as a metric will help us create programs that recognize clean technologies.”

The GSA launched its new effort as a result of President Obama’s Executive Order 13514, which requires all federal agencies to plan and implement new policies and programs to reduce energy use and greenhouse gases. The federal government spends more than $500 billion a year on procurement contracts and has more than 600,000 suppliers. Energy consumption by the GSA alone in 2008 totaled $24 billion, the most of any federal agency.

After talking with business owners, the GSA hopes to cull ideas to incentivize vendors to perform analyses of their greenhouse gas production, according to Nancy Gillis, director of the GSA’s supply chain emissions procurement office. But when a roomful of Oregon business owners on Tuesday were asked whether they report their greenhouse gas emissions, only five of several dozen attendees raised their hands.

Mark Frost of the Clean Technology Trade Alliance commented that his group last year surveyed 800 businesses in New Mexico and fewer than 2 percent had either reported greenhouse gas emissions or knew anything about it.

“New Mexico isn’t Oregon, but that’s a small number,” Frost said. “I suggest a lot of outreach to businesses.”

Education in a standardized manner also will be key, said Dave Meyer, vice president of Northwest operations for SEEDS Global Alliance. The federal government uses multiple calculation tools offered by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative. Federal agencies, under Executive Order 13514, are required to report and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions over time. These tools could also be used by businesses, said Dana Arnold, senior adviser with the GSA Federal Acquisition Service.

All testimony received at Tuesday’s meeting will be used to develop a future pilot program for small businesses. Those that enroll will receive technical assistance from the GSA to measure, report and reduce their greenhouse gases.

The GSA’s program comes at a contentious time for efforts concerning greenhouse gases. House Republican leaders at the start of the 112th Congress shuttered the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which was created in 2006 by U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-California, to address climate change and energy issues.

But decreasing the federal government’s energy use, and especially reducing its dependence on oil, is still important, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Oregon said Tuesday at OMSI.

“Oil hit $100 a barrel today,” he said. “Change is coming in terms of how we do business. The bottom line is the federal government needs to lead by example. Greening the supply chain is not just doing what is right; it will bring to scale other opportunities to improve our quality of life and economy.”

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FBI’s Portland headquarters

Location: Near Portland International Airport
Developer: The Molasky Group
Architect/Engineer: HGA Architects and Engineers
Owner: General Services Administration
Cost: $40.6 million
Size: 136,000 square feet

Cascade Station will soon have a new neighbor: the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

General contractor Skanska USA on Monday announced that a $40.6 million development planned near Portland International Airport will serve as the FBI’s Portland headquarters.

The FBI has occupied the Crowne Plaza building in downtown Portland for many years; however, new security requirements and a need to consolidate operations led the General Services Administration to choose construction of a new home for the federal agency, according to Ross Buffington, GSA spokesman.

The FBI’s new 136,000-square-foot facility was developed by The Molasky Group of Las Vegas, and will include a four-story office building, a single-story outbuilding and a 200-car parking garage. Though project architect HGA Architects and Engineers couldn’t comment on the design of the facility for security reasons, Buffington said Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design silver certification would be pursued.

More federal agencies could eventually relocate to the area near Portland International Airport, according to Steve Wells, senior managing director for Trammell Crow, which developed Cascade Station. A Carter-era policy required federal agencies to be located downtown, but the Patriot Act of 2001 requires a 25-meter setback around any building that houses a federal agency overseen by the Department of Defense.

Finding enough space to meet that requirement in downtown Portland, Wells said, is difficult. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is presently in downtown and subject to the setback rule, could use a new space to house its Portland headquarters.

“The Cascade Station area is one of the few areas that can meet federal setback requirements and still keep an agency within the city of Portland,” Wells said. “If you go out to Kruse Way, your chance of finding transit options there are slim. Cascade is a suburban-style office park that’s still well served by transit and accessible by freeway.”

When the FBI departs downtown Portland for Cascade Station in 2012, it will leave three floors of vacant space at the Crowne Plaza building at 1500 S.W. First Ave., according to Scott Andrews, president of Melvin Mark Properties. Andrews, who manages leasing for the building, said his company began to actively market the space only recently because it wasn’t certain until this week that the FBI would leave.

“The building is 95 percent leased today and has always been a full building,” Andrews said. “I don’t think it will be terribly hard to fill the space.”

Ground will be broken on the FBI facility on Dec. 1, giving Portland’s construction industry a shot in the arm, according to Mike Doran, a Skanska project executive. Despite some gains this year, Oregon’s commercial construction market is still struggling.

“There has been a considerable amount of effort into making this project a reality,” Doran said. “With the commercial development market at the bottom, this project is timely and will create jobs for our families.”

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Competing federal lease requirements have frustrated some local real estate professionals looking for spaces to suit the federal government.

The General Services Administration wants 126,500 square feet of office space for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. But in Portland the agency cannot meet both a federal requirement for the building to have 25-meter setbacks and another for the building to be in downtown. As a result, the GSA may need a new building, most likely outside the urban core.

“The most unfortunate part of all of this is that we spent the last 40 years building up our mass transit to downtown areas in order to accommodate requirements like these,” said Jim Mark, CEO of Melvin Mark Cos., which handles leasing for the corps’ present home, Robert Duncan Plaza at 333 S.W. First Ave. “Then a new requirement comes in and reverses everything we worked for.”

The Patriot Act of 2001 requires 25-meter setbacks around any building that houses a federal agency overseen by the Department of Defense if it occupies at least 25 percent of the building. But an executive order from the Carter administration called for federal agencies to be in downtown cores.

The GSA is looking for space because the corps’ lease at Robert Duncan Plaza runs out at the end of this year. Federal agencies are required to issue a request for proposals when their 20-year leases run out so that other property owners can bid for the next one, said Ross Buffington, spokesman for the GSA. But the agency must include the setback requirements in the RFP.

“We went through the negotiations, but there is really no way to accommodate those needs in this building, or any other existing building,” Mark said. “These same requirements pushed the FBI out to Cascade Station, and you are probably going to see the same thing here.”

But U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Matt Rabe said the downtown location is vital for workforce development.

“Staying in downtown is really important to the employees here because it’s so centrally located to where we all live and the public transit system is set up so nicely to get here,” Rabe said.

“The long and short of this is that we’ve been building the way we build because of this and now they’re changing it,” Mark said. “It’s pretty much impossible to meet both of those.”

The only downtown space that comes close to meeting the agency’s size requirements is the 110,000-square-foot space at KOIN Center, but it’s not even big enough.

The unbuilt Park Avenue West also is not an option. Adding a 25-meter buffer to the partially constructed tower would significantly alter its design because its foundation has already been built.

“We cannot meet those requirements and no one else in downtown can either,” said Vanessa Sturgeon, vice president of TMT Development, the firm developing Park Avenue West.

Buffington said the GSA is seeking proposals from both building owners and development firms able to offer a build-to-suit space. For the FBI, the agency awarded a $3.2 million contract to Las Vegas-based Molasky Group to construct a 135,000-square-foot complex at Cascade Station.

“Considering this was a Bush administration requirement, I thought someone might step in and overturn it by now. But nothing has happened yet,” Mark said. “In the meantime we will extend the lease with the agency until it decides what it wants to do.

“But I bet (the corps) ends up in a built-to-suit.”

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The bids are in for the U.S. Custom House, and local real estate company PREM Group has claimed victory over — and ownership of — the long-vacant historic downtown building.

After three weeks of spirited bidding, Andrew Schwartz of the General Service Administration’s Office of Real Property confirmed that PREM Group’s bid of $2.5 million has won the firm the U.S. Custom House. The real estate company plans to convert the turn-of-the-century building into its new offices.

PREM Group is currently located at Northwest 12^th Avenue and Flanders Street. According to PREM Group spokesman Jacob Johnson, the considerably larger Custom House will provide ample meeting space for the various neighborhood associations, trade groups and others that PREM currently offers free meeting space to.

“Our office hosts 20 to 30 events each week,” Johnson said. “We plan to set up a community area within the Custom House for those groups to hold their meetings, as well as have some incubation space for nonprofits.”

Located at 220 N.W. Eighth Ave., the Custom House most recently housed the Western Pacific Division of the Army Corps of Engineers. The GSA made several attempts since 2004 to unload the structure, but attempts to renovate the building for another use have proved too expensive. The building was put up for auction by the GSA in May after The International School abandoned an effort to redevelop the property into a school.

PREM Group said it recognizes that the building is a fixer-upper, and has no plans to change its use from office space.

“Obviously that building has a ton of skeletons in it,” Johnson said.” But with us being in the business of real estate, we have in-house capabilities to handle those things.  We’re a sustainable company and being able to reuse a building is important to our mission.”

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