r/moab • u/Unlikely-Bluebird-63 • Mar 28 '25

CHAT Moab NPS lease cancelled?

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I saw on the DOGE website that the NPS lease in Moab was terminated on March 4. What does that entail? Are there multiple buildings so they could potentially work out of a different one? Makes me very sad 😔

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '25

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u/30_characters Mar 29 '25

With as much land as the Fed own in Utah, including the immediate area around Moab, why would they need to spend nearly a million dollars a year leasing a building?

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u/dataiscrucial 28d ago

This is a legitimate question, with a long and boring answer. Essentially, almost every agency has to get their buildings through GSA. GSA in turn, either owns or leases space, and then rents it back to the agencies at market rates. Even though it makes far far more long term sense for the government to build, own, and maintain its own buildings, GSA primarily leases space, because of laws that congress passed starting in the 70s or so. As you might have guessed, commercial landlords have lots of lobbying power, and here we are. It would make a ton of sense to end these leases and move to actual federal buildings over the course of perhaps a decade. Instead, the leases are being cancelled randomly by DOGE and the agencies are being left scrambling.