The Creative Use of Federal Assets provides a framework in which an agency can transfer its underutilized real estate assets to another agency that needs them. The Kansas City Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Service Center has sought funding for several years to update and consolidate its aging, geographically dispersed, and inefficient campus. The existing IRS campus is made up of several Federally owned and leased facilities spread out in five major locations within the Kansas City metropolitan area. Prospectus requests for updating the Service Center have repeatedly been turned down. Concurrently, a joint IRS and GSA team, named the Strategic Campus Action Team (SCAT), has been developing a conceptual design for an IRS campus that will facilitate the reinvented method in which the IRS will conduct business in the 21st century.
The existing Kansas City Main Post Office had considered expanding its central city site several years ago and had acquired 25 acres adjoining the Main Post Office. When a better financial opportunity to expand presented itself in another part of the city, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) left a mostly empty building with an excellent adjoining site of several owned parcels of land. The USPS and GSA entered into a partnership whereby USPS hired a developer to transform the Post Office and site into a new IRS Service Center. GSA will lease the building from USPS, and in turn assign it to IRS. Private sector financing has been obtained to build the project. The financing is secured by GSA’s long-term occupancy agreement with IRS. As it happens, the existing Post Office and site provide a nearly perfect fit for the construction of a new IRS Service Center based on SCAT principles. The project will be a leading example of a new results orientation in the Federal sector.
The project represents a winning combination for all parties involved. The IRS gets a new state of the art Service Center, consolidating its scattered business operations into one location. GSA houses its client in first class space. Kansas City benefits by having almost 6,000 Federal jobs relocated within the urban core. As private sector financing will be used up front, GSA’s Federal Building Fund benefits by amortizing the costs of the project over time. Most importantly, the taxpayer will be the long-term beneficiary of a more efficient, streamlined IRS operating from one location.
For more information, contact Mr. David A. Fellers at (816) 823-2244 or via e-mail at david.fellers@gsa.gov.
