FCC Lease Up in 2017; Move Possible

The lease on the FCC’s current headquarters at the Portals building runs out in 2017, and the commission could end up moving to a different location or a smaller space within the same building, FCC officials, former FCC officials and the General Services Administration told us last week. Proposals for moving or consolidating into a smaller portion of the building have been discussed in the chairman’s office and the Office of Managing Director, several FCC officials told us, though the GSA makes a final decision on the matter. Though the lease’s end is two years away, planning for a potential move or consolidation of space likely needs to begin well in advance of the Oct. 16, 2017, end date, several former FCC officials told us.

The GSA plans “a full and open competition” between potential landing spots for the FCC, with the commission’s current landlord Parcel49C able to compete for the contract alongside others, a GSA spokeswoman told us. The GSA would pick a winner based on the most competitive offer, she said. Communications Daily submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the GSA for the FCC's leasing agreement, but hadn't received a response at our deadline.

Neither the GSA nor the FCC would comment on the amount of influence the FCC chairman has over the final decision, but GSA “will work with the FCC to develop requirements for the competition among buildings,” the GSA spokeswoman said. “The Chairman has influence over this -- not the final decision, but influence,” said former FCC Chairman Richard Wiley, now heading Wiley Rein’s communications practice. Wiley said he was consulted on potential relocation scenarios for the FCC when he was at the helm, and the GSA went along with his recommendations. Former Chairman Reed Hundt, who presided over the FCC’s move to the Portals from its previous M Street location, said the GSA didn’t allow him much influence at all. Perceived irregularities in the FCC’s move to the Portals led to lawsuits and congressional oversight hearings involving Hundt and some GSA officials. Hundt was given executive decision-making power over the carpets laid in the new building -- a scrap of which decorates his office wall -- but little else, he told us.

The commission isn’t efficiently using all of the space it currently occupies in the Portals, and could make do with less, one FCC official told us. According to the GSA’s online inventory of leased properties, the commission currently rents 537,812 square feet in the Portals. The FCC’s 2014 budget request also mentions “dramatically unused and inefficiently used space” and speaks of plans to consolidate. Development in the area could be another reason for a potential FCC move, one former official told us. The FCC’s current location has become a hot property because of its proximity to the Washington waterfront, one former official said.

If the FCC did move, it’s unlikely to have much of an effect on where telecom lawyers roost, several attorneys told us. Several firms opened satellite offices near the Portals when the FCC first moved there, but most are rarely used and leases have been allowed to lapse, Wiley told us. “It used to matter, but it's changed with so much consolidation among law firms,” Pillsbury Winthrop communications attorney John Hane said. For larger law firms that have communications law as only one aspect of their practice, its unlikely that a relocated FCC would lead them to move offices, Wiley and Hane said. “We’re just used to getting into a cab to get there now,” Wiley said.