Federal government could sell ‘money pits’ in Atlanta, Savannah and Athens

Known as the Public Buildings Reform Board, the group Thursday unveiled efforts to vacate some federal buildings, including one in Atlanta, in hopes of finding buyers.

During the hearing, it was announced Atlanta’s Peachtree Summit Federal Building will be vacated of all tenants by October 2029. The building has been a regional home for agencies including the Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. A relocation destination was not disclosed.

The cost-cutting effort is paramount, the PBRB board members said, because many federal buildings are in a state of disrepair and are barely used — a waste of taxpayer resources on real estate that could be put to better use.

“The lights are on, but nobody’s home,” said Nick Rahall, PBRB member and a former congressman from West Virginia. “The vast majority of federal office space remains vastly underutilized.”

Atlanta has one of the largest clusters of federally owned workspace outside of Washington, D.C., many of which are aging and are concentrated downtown.

PBRB provides advice to the General Services Administration on which buildings should be sold versus warrant reinvestment. GSA oversees the government’s leased and owned properties.

Efforts to shed federally owned space have been underway since the first Obama administration, but they accelerated last year. Using the short-lived Department of Government Efficiency at President Donald Trump’s behest, GSA spent early 2025 looking to offload hundreds of federal properties, including the landmark Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center, before rescinding that entire list.

The GSA has slowly listed buildings for sale since then, including in March 2025, when it began marketing the 30-story Peachtree Summit Federal Building.

Selling the distinctive delta-shaped high-rise overlooking the Downtown Connector would free up the building for new uses, but vacating it would limit its appeal as an office tower.

“Conventional wisdom would say that emptying tenants from any real estate product is not a good thing in terms of its effect on value,” A.J. Robinson, president and CEO of downtown’s main civic organization Central Atlanta Progress, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“We’re always sad to see any tenants leave a building downtown,” he continued. “But in this case, it seems inevitable, and it’s also inevitable that the building is going to have very little value, if any, once they leave.”

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com

A report PBRB released in March put the stakes in perspective of kicking the can down the road and ignoring the state of many of these federal buildings.

In partnership with real estate services firm JLL, the board identified more than $50 billion in deferred maintenance costs and repair liabilities across the federal portfolio. That was more than double the most recent government estimates.

PBRB member Dan Mathews said it’s an insurmountable hole that can’t be filled with budget cuts or reallocated tax dollars.

“Even if Congress gave you tens of billions of dollars of extra money on top of full access to the federal buildings fund, you still can’t come close to the scale of this problem,” he said.

The buildings in the worst shape, and those with the least justification for remaining, are buildings between 31 and 75 years old, Mathews said. He called them “mid-century money pits” that “are not worth another dime” of taxpayer investment.

Almost all federal buildings, even those fully leased by government agencies, aren’t packed to the brim with workers, PBRB data found. Instead, only a fraction of workers are consistently swiping into these buildings to work.

A survey found no federal agency met the Congress-mandated threshold of having 60% utilization of its workspace, meaning fewer than six of 10 desks are consistently occupied. Some buildings are less than 20% used, which PBRB members said presents an opportunity for agencies to downsize significantly.

“The inventory needs to be shrunk, so that tax dollars can be invested in properties where employees are actually coming to work,” Rahall said.

The board identified 26 additional properties, including four in Georgia, that could join the chopping block. Those include the IRS Service Center in Atlanta, the Robert G. Stephens Federal Building in Athens and two historic federal buildings in Savannah. Offloading those buildings is projected to save taxpayers $1.2 billion over the next 30 years.

Athens-Clarke County government leaders have reportedly considered buying its mostly empty federal building for years to establish a new courthouse, according to local outlet Flagpole Magazine. Savannah, a city renowned for historic preservation, has also been abuzz wondering about the future of its aging federal buildings.

Credit: Sarah Peacock

Credit: Sarah Peacock

Eight of the buildings being evaluated for disposition received unsolicited interest, which PBRB members said is an encouraging sign. The specific buildings were not disclosed.

Some federal buildings are on land better used for other types of development, said board member Talmage Hocker. He highlighted in a presentation a property in Virginia that could become data centers alongside one in the nation’s capital that could be residential. Other buildings, such as ones identified in Montana and Philadelphia, have the bones for residential or hotel conversion.

It’s unclear whether Peachtree Summit could be converted, but Robinson said it’s on land poised to become more valuable. Located near North Avenue, it’s close to the first planned Stitch connection, an elevated park envisioned to cap parts of the Downtown Connector.

“The location is a good one,” he said. “It’s just not a good one for an empty office building.”