Trump Team Targets DFW, Austin Federal Buildings for Sell-off

Federal offices in Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin totaling 3.6 million square feet may soon be up for grabs, thanks to the Trump administration’s push to unload real estate.

The federal government is considering selling a slate of office properties across Texas as part of a broader effort to offload what the General Services Administration called “functionally obsolete,” the Dallas Business Journal and Austin Business Journal reported.

The GSA briefly posted a list of 443 federally owned properties across the country it deemed “non-core assets” on Tuesday morning, which it would consider putting on the market. By Wednesday morning, the list disappeared.

In addition to properties in Houston, the list included several large federal office buildings in Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin. Some of the largest buildings include:

In Fort Worth:

The Fritz G. Lanham Federal Building, 669,000 square feet; and
Fort Worth Federal Parking Garage, 8,000 square feet.

In Dallas:

The Centre, 317,000 square feet;
The Santa Fe Federal Building, 261,000 square feet;
The Terminal Annex Building, 233,000 square feet; and
The A. Maceo Smith Federal Building, 189,000 square feet.

In Austin:

The IRS SW Service Center, 486,000 square feet;
The VA Austin Auto Center, 241,000 square feet.
The J.J. Jake Pickle Federal Building, 215,000 square feet;
The Austin Finance Center, 84,000 square feet; and
Stars Child Care Center, 10,000 square feet.

Buildings tied to the Internal Revenue Service and Veterans Affairs were among those named in Austin, while others named in DFW house the Social Security Administration, IRS and National Labor Relations Board.

The GSA said the buildings on the list cost taxpayers more than $430 million annually to operate. The agency aims to shift some offices into smaller spaces or consolidate agency locations, a statement read. It also indicated openness to sale-leasebacks and public-private partnerships in lieu of outright sales.

Dropping federal office leases is also on the table; the federal government leases over 2.75 million square feet of office space in more than 85 buildings throughout the DFW metroplex, some of which have leases set to expire as early as March 31.

In Austin, the GSA leases more than 913,800 square feet of office space.

The federal government has been steadily decreasing its real estate footprint since before the pandemic began in 2020, with Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency positioned to accelerate the reductions.

— Judah Duke