PROGRAM SUMMARY
June Program Summary:
GSA Stimulus Dollars in DC: The How, What, When, and Where
Guest Speakers:
Dean E. Smith
GSA Regional Stimulus Executive
Kathleen Geisler
Acting Director
GSA Real Estate Division
Mona-Lisa Dunn
Director
GSA Acquisition Management Division
Moderator:
William “Bart” Bush, Regional Commissioner – GSA Public Buildings Service for the National Capital Region
The General Services Administration (GSA) is the federal government’s real property management agency. It purchases, builds, leases, and manages properties on behalf of various government agencies. It also leases to and manages space for commercial users. GSA is broken down into eleven regions – we, in the DC metropolitan area, make up the smallest of those regions, The National Capital Region (NCR). Currently, the GSA owns a total 299 buildings (about 42 million SF) and leases 599 buildings (about 53.6 million SF) in the NCR.
Through The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, GSA is slated to received $5.55 billion. The program’s panelists, all NCR representatives, worked to outline how the GSA intends to spend this money nationally as well as in the NCR.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is a $787 billion stimulus package designed by Congress to ease the effects of the worldwide economic on the US. According to the distinguished speakers, the Act has four objectives: to create and save jobs, invest in infrastructure, stabilize municipal and state budgets, and assist those citizens worst hit by the recession.
The GSA has developed a spending plan to address the Act’s mandates that includes projects in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and two territories. These projects will consist of new construction, full and partial building modernizations, and smaller projects.
The $5.55 billion will be distributed as follows:
High performance green buildings will receive the majority of the GSA’s funds. So what will a “green building” project entail? The GSA plans to employ numerous methods to make their new and existing buildings more efficient.
For example, it will utilize alternative energy sources, such as wind or photovoltaic cells (that convert the sun’s energy into electricity) to power certain properties. GSA will also install efficient “green” and “white” roofing systems on some of its buildings. Green roofs are covered in vegetation that help moderate temperature, filter air, and reduce storm water runoff. White roofs reflect light better than darker-colored roofs, keeping buildings cooler (and, thus, less expensive to condition).
GSA will target projects that get people back to work as quickly as possible and best take advantage of the funding that is heading its way shortly. GSA expects to be awarded its first $1 billion by August 1, 2009.
Although the NCR is the smallest of the 11 GSA regions, it is slated to receive the most funding: $1.22 billion. In order to ramp up its project load quickly, it has begun hiring. It is currently looking to hire 53 people to supplement the current NCR staff. All GSA job postings can be viewed at www.usajobs.gov.
NCR projects to be funded include a new $450 million headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security and $161 million restoration of the GSA’s headquarters, originally built in 1917.
GSA is also looking to streamline its leasing practices. The NCR currently manages 97 million SF and holds a rental account of $1.9 billion. It operates through four service centers that function relatively independently of each other – they were each designed to contain all of NCR’s leasing functions and serve different areas within the NCR.
NCR now plans to divide each real estate function under a separate “umbrella.” There will be a division for lease administration, a division for project management build-out, etc. The service centers will still exist, but about a quarter of their employees will move under the umbrella service groups. NCR hopes this new organizational system will improve communication and efficiency.
So how does a private company get involved with the NCR and the $1.2 billion it’s planning to spend? There are many different ways to contract with the GSA, including registering your company with the GSA to compete for a project (“scheduling”) and through small business set-asides (see www.gsa.gov for more complete contracting information).
In particular, the panelists emphasized the GSA’s commitment to small businesses. It qualifies a small business by the dollar amount of the company’s income from the previous year as well as the specific services it offers – different fields of service have different income thresholds. GSA is required to set-aside a certain dollar amount of its contracts annually for small businesses. There is also a set-aside for women-owned businesses.
And projects awarded to larger firms are often performed by smaller subcontractors, so the panelists strongly encouraged small businesses to partner with bigger firms already working with GSA.
To participate in a GSA small business showcase, contact: shaunta.johnson@gsa.gov.
GSA advertises all contracting opportunities on:
www.FedBizOpps.gov
Information re GSA’s Recovery Act activities can be found on:
www.gsa.gov/recovery
Recovery Act questions (not found on the above sites) can be directed to:
www.IndustryRelations@gsa.gov
The government’s Recovery Act-related work is tracked on:
www.recovery.gov
Click here to view a PDF of the Power Point presentation.
Click here for a Word document with helpful resources.
Click here for a PDF list of attendees.
