On Tuesday, the General Services Administration published a list of 443 federal buildings that could possibly be sold off.
Hours later, it removed more than a hundred properties from the list. By Wednesday, it was replaced with a line that read “Coming soon.”
The original list included several high-profile properties in Washington, D.C., such as the J. Edgar Hoover Building, which serves as the headquarters of the FBI and Justice Department.
It also listed hundreds of other buildings across the country, including the Major General Emmett J. Bean Federal Center in Indiana, the Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center in Georgia, and the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in California.
A spokesperson for the GSA told the Daily Beast on Thursday that the list was published with the aim of heeding President Donald Trump’s directive to bring federal employees back into offices and to “drive maximum value for the federal real estate footprint.”
“To be clear, just because an asset is on the list doesn’t mean it’s immediately for sale,” the spokesperson said, adding that compelling offers would be considered.
The GSA said it had received “an overwhelming amount of interest” since it published its “non-core property” list on Tuesday. The spokesperson did not explain why the list was taken down, but said it would be republished “in the near future.”
A source who spoke to CNN said the list was taken down because “there was a miscommunication issue” when it was posted.
The source said the list mistakenly included federal buildings that the administration does not intend to sell: “This is another example of rushing to get things out and posted without taking time to review what is actually being shared.”
In a Tuesday news release, the GSA said the buildings it identified for potential sale had become “functionally obsolete and unsuitable for use” due to “decades of funding deficiencies.”
The potential sale of federal buildings is among the many moves being taken by the Trump administration as part of a push to cut down on government spending.
Last month, GSA regional managers were ordered to terminate leases on roughly 7,500 federal offices nationwide, according to The Associated Press.
An employee told the AP that they were instructed to aim for terminating as many as 300 leases a day.
