U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins speaks at a Future Farmers of America event at the Tennessee State Fair on August 18, 2025. (Photo by John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will transfer a vast office building to the General Services Administration to reduce the department’s presence in and around Washington, D.C., Secretary Brooke Rollins said Wednesday.
More than 70% of offices at USDA South buildingin Washington, sit empty on any given day while deferred maintenance costs have piled up to more than $1 billion, Rollins said at a news conference outside the building.
“Behind me, along this entire brick-and-mortar city block, is a government that is too big, too bloated and too disconnected from its citizens,” Rollins said. “Starting today, that changes as today we officially begin the process of returning the South Building to the General Services Administration.”
The department will also vacate rented space at an office in Alexandria, Virginia, USDA Assistant Secretary Stephen Vaden said.
The moves are part of a department plan described in July 2025 to relocate its workforce from the Capital Region, reducing its workforce in D.C., Maryland and Virginia from 4,600 to approximately 2,000 while expanding regional hubs across the country.
Rollins said Wednesday the move was the “next step in right-sizing our federal real estate footprint to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.”
Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican who has long supported shrinking the federal government, welcomed the move and urged department officials to consider her state as a destination for relocation.
“Let’s just continue to drain the swamp and, Secretary Rollins, bring our federal employees closer to the people they represent,” Ernst said. “And I would say that great Iowa State is a good place to start.”
Workforce has to move
Department food and nutrition service employees currently reporting to the Virginia office will relocate to Washington, D.C., Vaden said.
The broader restructuring would progress over the summer and allow employees with school-aged children to finish the school year in the Capital Region and complete their move in time for the next school year, he said.
This will require a series of steps required by laws, regulations and union contracts, Vaden said.
The July plan said the effort to disperse the USDA workforce from Washington would take years. It included expanded regional offices in Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis; Fort Collins, Colo.; and Salt Lake City.
The department would also maintain administrative locations in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Minneapolis, as well as agency service centers in St. Louis; Lincoln, Neb.; and Missoula, Montana a memo dated July 24th.
Future of the south building unclear
GSA Administrator Edward Forst said the move represents “a very preliminary phase” and declined to provide a timeline for completing the transfer.
“I don’t want to commit to any time frame other than I have two years and 10 months left in this job,” he said. “And we’re going to get a lot done in that time frame.”
Vaden said the USDA restructuring will be completed by the end of 2026.
Forst said the USDA’s transfer of the South Building triggered a long and extensive process to find a up-to-date operate. The agency would consult stakeholders, including the private sector, and stressed that the county’s prosperity was among its priorities.
“We are committed to the economic prosperity of D.C.,” he said. “That’s one of our initiatives. We’re also talking to the private sector and others about the best case scenario and how we also deliver the best results for the American taxpayer. So it’s a long, comprehensive process. We want to be good listeners, and then we’ll make it happen.”
