The building has been added to a list of properties that the administration says it is trying to offload in order to eliminate waste.
The Trump administration said on Thursday that it would try to sell and relocate the headquarters of the Department of Housing and Urban Development as part of a larger effort to downsize the federal government’s real estate portfolio.
The Robert C. Weaver Federal Building in Washington has been added to a list of properties that the administration says it is trying to offload in order to eliminate waste. The building faces more than $500 million in deferred maintenance and modernization needs, and costs more than $56 million in annual rent and operations expenses, federal officials said in a statement.
The timing of the move and the new location were still being considered, officials said. They added that staying in the Washington region was a “top priority.”
Scott Turner, the housing secretary, has said that the headquarters are “in disrepair,” and that he wants to create an environment “where our people want to come work.”
The agency’s focus, he said in a statement Thursday, was on “a workplace that reflects the values of efficiency, accountability and purpose.”
Federal officials also said that the number of housing department staff members assigned to work in the headquarters amounted to only around half of the building’s capacity. The department has been considering additional cuts to its work force as part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to shrink the federal bureaucracy.