Washington, D.C., has seen a surge in commuters returning to the office, but the federal government’s push for in-person work has also exposed widening gaps left since the workforce went remote during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Return to work was a key priority for President Donald Trump‘s administration and the local officials in Washington, but as workers returned to the office, there have been many complications — one being the state of the offices they returned to.
IRS employees told the Washington Post that their offices were ill-prepared for the number of people reporting for work and that the internal network was unreliable.
“They have people in conference rooms, cafeterias, and even some closets,” an IRS employee said.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s building was also in a state of disrepair, HUD Secretary Scott Turner told Fox News in an interview earlier this month. Turner, giving Fox News anchor Bret Baier a tour of the building in Washington, noted various broken elevators and leaks, among other problems.
“But there’s other parts of this building that are in disrepair, we spend a lot of money — a lot of taxpayer money to maintain and to rent HUD,” Turner said, adding the repairs will cost millions of dollars.
Another key issue for return to work is transportation to the office. Driving is the main mode of transportation for federal workers, but parking can be hard to come by at some offices.
At the Food and Drug Administration, employees returned to the office to chaos before even heading inside. The parking lot was full before 7 a.m., with employees previously describing to the Washington Examiner that people found parking wherever they could, even parking in aisles or on the side of the road.
The parking problems at the FDA’s White Oak campus existed prior to the pandemic, but the end of hybrid schedules in favor of a sudden fully in-person requirement made those problems more obvious.
With the return of federal workers to the office, rush-hour traffic on roads in Washington has returned to near pre-pandemic levels, and the D.C. Metro has seen a significant rebound in ridership.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority said it has hit records for ridership to Pentagon, NoMa-Gallaudet U, Loudoun Gateway, and Herndon stations in recent weeks, following 47 months of ridership growth since the pandemic.
While crowding has been a problem for agencies like the FDA, the Trump administration has found an overabundance of properties owned by other agencies, which they have eyed to cut leases for.
Public Buildings Service Commissioner Michael Peters previously said he wanted to cut 50% of federal office properties, including the General Services Administration’s office building. The Department of Government Efficiency has outlined on its website the properties it is looking to axe, including numerous properties outside of the D.C. Beltway.
Buildings included on the DOGE list are properties used by the GSA, HUD, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Department of Education, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Justice.
The GSA also published a list of “non-core” properties it is considering selling, which included various federal buildings across Washington.
The agency says it hopes to “eliminate costly maintenance and allows us to reinvest in high-quality work environments that support agency missions,” by selling these properties.
Shortly before Trump took office, Washington officials set up multiple incentives for office space to be converted into housing and other entities. While the city has seen few conversions from office buildings to housing, local officials are hoping to add to the list of conversions with the expected uptick in terminated leases.
Data from RentCafe published in February show that Washington is second in the country, behind New York City, in terms of conversions from office space to apartment buildings, with 6,533 unit conversions in progress. The report also outlined 61.3 million square feet of office space deemed suitable to be converted to apartment space.
While many of the conversion projects have featured private office buildings, including the Universal Buildings in DuPont Circle, some are used to house government workers. A former headquarters for the Peace Corps was converted into an apartment building called the Elle last year to fanfare from the Washington government, which hopes to spearhead more conversions.
“We know that having a balanced mix of uses helps make our neighborhoods, including our downtown, more dynamic,” Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said about the “Office to Anything” program. “We will transform vacant and underutilized offices into new, productive uses that increase foot traffic, generate economic activity and tax revenue, and bring new vibrancy to D.C.’s commercial core.”
Another recent example of repurposed government property is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Cotton Annex, which was converted from office space into apartments and began welcoming residents in December.
As the Trump administration continues cutting government jobs, the surplus of office space could worsen. Shifting agency strategies may also play a role.
DOGE initially planned to close several Social Security offices, but after the Social Security Administration adjusted its identity verification process, fewer leases were terminated to keep options available for the public.
HERE’S WHAT DOGE IS DOING ACROSS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
Census Bureau data released earlier this month show the Washington metro area rebounding in population after a COVID-19-era decline. From 2023 to 2024, the region grew by 90,608 people, pushing the city’s population above 700,000 for the first time since 2019.
Whether this growth continues despite federal workforce cuts remains uncertain.
