[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 104 (Monday, June 23, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H5818-H5820]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           OLD POST OFFICE BUILDING REDEVELOPMENT ACT OF 2008

  Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 5001) to authorize the Administrator of General Services to 
provide for the redevelopment of the Old Post Office Building located 
in the District of Columbia, as amended.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 5001

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Old Post Office Building 
     Redevelopment Act of 2008''.

     SEC. 2. OLD POST OFFICE BUILDING DEFINED.

       In this Act, the term ``Old Post Office Building'' means 
     the land, including any improvements thereon and specifically 
     including the Pavilion Annex, that is located at 1100 
     Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., in the District of Columbia, and 
     under the jurisdiction, custody, and control of the General 
     Services Administration.

     SEC. 3. FINDINGS.

       Congress finds the following:
       (1) For almost a decade the Subcommittee on Economic 
     Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management of 
     the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the 
     House of Representatives has expressed considerable concern 
     about the waste and neglect of the valuable, historic Old 
     Post Office Building, centrally located in the heart of the 
     Nation's Capital on Pennsylvania Avenue, and has pressed the 
     General Services Administration to develop and fully use this 
     building.
       (2) The policy of the Government long has been to preserve 
     and make usable historic properties rather than sell them for 
     revenue.
       (3) Security concerns related to this property's proximity 
     to the White House may hinder the sale of the Old Post Office 
     Building to a private party.
       (4) On December 28, 2000, the General Services 
     Administration, pursuant to Public Law 105-277, submitted to 
     the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the 
     House of Representatives and the Committees on Appropriations 
     and Environment and Public Works of the Senate a plan for the 
     comprehensive redevelopment of the Old Post Office.
       (5) The Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 
     approved the redevelopment plan on May 16, 2001, and the 
     Committees on Appropriations and Environment and Public Works 
     approved the plan on June 15, 2001.
       (6) The General Services Administration issued a Request 
     for Expression of Interest in 2004 for developing the Old 
     Post Office Building that generated a healthy, private sector 
     interest, but the General Services Administration has failed 
     to proceed with implementation of the approved redevelopment 
     plan.
       (7) Redevelopment of the Old Post Office Building will 
     preserve the historic integrity of this unique and important 
     asset, put it to its highest and best use, and provide a 
     lucrative financial return to the Government.

     SEC. 4. REDEVELOPMENT OF OLD POST OFFICE BUILDING.

       (a) In General.--The Administrator of General Services is 
     directed to proceed with redevelopment of the Old Post Office 
     Building, in accordance with existing authorities available 
     to the Administrator and consistent with the redevelopment 
     plan previously approved by the Committee on Transportation 
     and Infrastructure of the House of Representatives and the 
     Committees on Appropriations and Environment and Public Works 
     of the Senate.
       (b) Relocation of Existing Building Tenants.--The 
     Administrator is authorized, notwithstanding section 3307 of 
     title 40, United States Code, and otherwise in accordance 
     with existing authorities available to the Administrator, to 
     provide replacement space for Federal agency tenants housed 
     in the Old Post Office Building whose relocation is necessary 
     for redevelopment of the Building.

     SEC. 5. REPORTING REQUIREMENT.

       (a) In General.--The Administrator of General Services 
     shall transmit to the Committee on Transportation and 
     Infrastructure of the House of Representatives and the 
     Committee on Environment and Public Works of the Senate a 
     report on any proposed redevelopment agreement related to the 
     Old Post Office Building.
       (b) Contents.--A report transmitted under this section 
     shall include a summary of a cost-benefit analysis of the 
     proposed development agreement and a description of the 
     material provisions of the proposed agreement.
       (c) Review by Congress.--Any proposed development agreement 
     related to the Old Post Office Building may not become 
     effective until the end of a 30-day period of continuous 
     session of Congress following the date of the transmittal of 
     the report required under this section. For purposes of the 
     preceding sentence, continuity of a session of Congress is 
     broken only by an adjournment sine die, and there shall be 
     excluded from the computation of such 30-day period any day 
     during which either House of Congress is not in session 
     during an adjournment of more than 3 days to a day certain.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from 
the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) and the gentlewoman from Virginia 
(Mrs. Drake) each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia.


                             General Leave

  Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their 
remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 5001.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from the District of Columbia?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I am pleased to rise in support of H.R. 5001, as amended, and to ask 
for the support of the House, a bill to direct the General Services 
Administration to redevelop the Old Post Office located on Pennsylvania 
Avenue, right in the center of the District of Columbia.
  On January 16, 2008, I introduced H.R. 5001, the Old Post Office 
Development Act, to redevelop the nearly empty Old Post Office, a 
unique historic treasure which was once the post office of the Nation's 
capital located at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, owned by the 
Federal Government's GSA.
  For more than ten years, our Subcommittee on Economic Development, 
Public Buildings, and Emergency Management has expressed continuing and 
mounting concern about the neglect and underutilization of this 
invaluable government site, and has pressed the GSA to develop and use 
this building to its full potential.
  Madam Speaker, when I brought this bill to the full committee, Mr. 
Oberstar from whom we just heard on a prior bill and Ranking Member 
Mica lead what could only be called a round of hoorahs and hosannas 
that this bill was being brought forward.
  More than 20 million visitors come. This building is so strategically 
placed that it is almost certain that constituents of Members have 
ventured into this extraordinary building which looks like just the 
kind of building that invites people on the outside, and then they come 
on the inside and they can't believe what they see. So the building is 
well known not only by our subcommittee but by the full committee. 
Worse, as I shall relate, is why it has not been brought forward.
  The Old Post Office Building was completed in 1899. That makes it one 
of the oldest buildings here, and is certainly one of the oldest, 
perhaps the oldest, for which rehabilitation and preservation has not 
somehow begun or envisioned. This grand example of Romanesque revival 
occupies an entire city block. Because it was the main post office, it 
was strategically located for a purpose not as an historic building, 
but in the 19th century when that is how you built post offices.
  The building was placed on the Historic Register in 1973, and remains 
one of the city's most unusual, interesting, and appealing landmarks. 
Part of the appeal of the Old Post Office Building also is its central 
location in the Federal Triangle, its proximity to many Federal 
historic sites not the least of them the White House which is a stone's 
throw from the Old Post Office. Our major metro lines converge there, 
and a host of restaurants and other amenities surround this location's 
major tourist site.

                              {time}  1615

  This bill is important for the city I represent, as well, but its 
importance

[[Page H5819]]

goes far beyond any particular district. This building belonged to the 
United States of America before there was any home rule in the District 
of Columbia.
  When the Congress of the United States ran the District of Columbia, 
they saw fit to have a post office befitting the Nation's capital. You 
would have thought, particularly given the history of developing 
historic structures here, for which the GSA deserves special credit, 
that this building certainly, at some point in the 20th century, would 
have been rehabilitated.
  Actually, this particular struggle started in 1998. Congress passed 
the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act 
of 1999, and in that act our committee required the GSA to submit a 
development plan for the Old Post Office before any Federal funds could 
be used to convert the space. And on February 28, 2000, GSA did in 
fact, pursuant to law, submit such a plan as required.
  Madam Speaker, no bill, and in my entire history on the committee, no 
bill has been necessary for this work. We don't trouble the Congress 
with this work. But it took a bill now 10 years ago just to get a plan. 
On May 16, 2001, the Committee on Transportation and the Infrastructure 
passed an additional resolution authorizing the development of the Old 
Post Office. So we come forward with bills that ordinarily are 
unnecessary because the GSA goes ahead and submits a prospectus that we 
approve, and that's it.
  The GSA finally in 2005 did issue what we call a request for 
expression of interest. That's the way we do federal development in our 
subcommittee.
  This is a priceless treasure. If you go to the inside of the 
building, you see it was built and looks now almost like a cavernous 
space, most of it is ceiling like this chamber, Madam Speaker, without 
the room to place for offices or the like. So in order to decide 
whether or not this was a property which the private sector thought 
could be developed, we required GSA to ask for expressions of interest.
  The GSA received apparently many indications of interest from the 
private sector. But the agency has never proceeded to the next step. 
For that reason--and remember we are talking about 2005 when the 
request for expression of interest occurred--as has been required, 
every step along the way, a bill is going to be necessary to move the 
GSA to act and that is what H.R. 5001 does, so that this structure can 
in fact be utilized for the benefit of Federal taxpayers, for the 
benefit of visitors to the city, and of course for the benefit of the 
city as well.
  The Congress may be curious as to why there would be any resistance. 
It is difficult to understand, Madam Speaker, considering that for 
three, almost four decades we have poured money into the Old Post 
Office because they didn't want to let it just stand there and get no 
revenue. So each year the Federal Government loses $6 million or $7 
million more than it takes in from the tiny agencies around the rim of 
the cave, as it were.
  If you multiply that over many decades, you will understand that 
pouring renovations into a building that needed a complete makeover, 
while allowing a tiny agency here or there to occupy whatever space you 
could find, has resulted in the loss of billions of dollars to the 
Federal Government, when in fact we could have reversed that process, 
bringing billions of dollars of revenue for us, had we done what we did 
with the highly regarded Tariff Building, another one of the grand old 
buildings that stood here when I was a kid and where GSA has already 
shown it can make excellent use of otherwise antiquated and virtually 
useless structures.
  What it did was to convert the old Tariff Building into the rarified, 
high priced Monaco Hotel, which sits across from the Portrait Gallery. 
That building quickly returned revenue to the Federal Government. The 
redevelopment of the Tariff Building shows what can be achieved when 
the Federal Government works with the private sector to redevelop a 
site that brings a return to the government, provides a safe and 
necessary facility for the city and for visitors, and importantly, 
preserves a priceless, truly priceless historic treasure.
  Madam Speaker, our bill now has language that makes it impossible for 
the GSA to refuse to proceed, as it has done with our prior two bills. 
GSA is directed to proceed. We waived the prospectus. OMB is not 
implicated. And I should say for the record that I think the villain in 
the piece is OMB and not GSA. For reasons known only to itself, and 
some have said that they wanted to sell the building, even though there 
is a bipartisan ``no'' to, in fact, selling any historic structure in 
the United States. Whatever is the reason, it took a killing in front 
of the building when they had rented it out to a George Washington 
University student organization in order to get any movement on the 
bill, and now the Congress is going to have to make it impossible for 
OMB to keep GSA from proceeding or face contempt of Congress.
  We also take away the excuse that there are agencies in the building. 
There are a couple of tiny agencies in the building, the kind of 
agencies that GSA can relocate on the back of an envelope because it 
relocates very large agencies all the time. Congress has done its 
homework. It is now time for the GSA to do its work and start bringing 
some revenue here from this historic structure and some pleasure for 
the many visitors who wander inside and are distressed by what they 
see.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. DRAKE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 5001, the Old Post 
Office Building Redevelopment Act of 2008. The bill would direct the 
General Services Administration to enter into an agreement to develop 
the Old Post Office building on Pennsylvania Avenue in accordance with 
its plan approved by the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 
in 2001. The bill would also authorize GSA to relocate the Federal 
agencies currently occupying the Old Post Office Building.
  The management of Federal real property has been on the Government 
Accountability Office's high-risk list since 2003. One of the key 
issues the GAO has raised is the problem of unused and under-used 
Federal property.
  Currently, the Old Post Office is under-used and has been for some 
time. Over the years, there have been many attempts to make better use 
of this historic building. The most recent attempt was made after 
Congress passed the Public Buildings Cooperative Use Act in 1976. This 
act, among other things, required GSA to encourage the public use of 
public buildings for ``cultural, educational and recreational 
activities'' and allowed Federal entities and commercial enterprises to 
share federally owned buildings.
  Unfortunately, the mixed use of Federal and commercial space was not 
successful in this case. Today, there are only a handful of Federal 
agencies in this historic building on Pennsylvania Avenue, considered 
America's Main Street. This area of the city has undergone 
revitalization to help benefit and attract people who live, work and 
visit the Nation's capital. Allowing for the redevelopment and reuse of 
this important building will help to further the progress made in this 
area of the city.
  Authorizing GSA to proceed with the full redevelopment of this 
building has the potential of being a win-win situation for the Federal 
Government, the taxpayers, and the local community. I support this 
bill, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5001, a bill 
to direct the redevelopment of the Old Post Office Building, which is 
not only a landmark in the Nation's capital, but a jewel of ``America's 
Main Street,'' Pennsylvania Avenue. I commend the gentlewoman from the 
District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) for introducing this legislation and 
for her work on this issue as Chair of the Subcommittee on Economic 
Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management.
  Completed in 1899, the Old Post Office building was intended to be 
the U.S. Post Office Department Headquarters building as well as the 
city's main post office. The Old Post Office building was awarded a 
place on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. This 
Romanesque building is the second tallest structure and one of the 
first steel-frame buildings in the District of Columbia.
  Despite the magnificence of this building and its extraordinary 
location, it has been difficult to develop this building to its fullest 
potential. A renovation of the Old Post Office began in 1977 as part of 
the redevelopment of Pennsylvania Avenue. In 1982, the General Services 
Administration, GSA, entered into a 55-year lease with a private sector 
developer

[[Page H5820]]

to lease and operate the Old Post Office building. The building was 
renovated as a multifunctional building that included office space, 
retail, and a food court. Unfortunately, this redevelopment effort was 
not successful because of high turnover among the retail businesses and 
low satisfaction among tenants. The original developer went into 
bankruptcy and the lender foreclosed on the leasehold.
  Today, the Old Post Office building is an aging historical building 
that is inefficient, underutilized, and a financial drain on the 
Federal Building Fund. The building's large atrium and other factors 
contribute to the high costs of operating and maintaining the building.
  The Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has provided 
oversight and direction to GSA previously in attempts to foster the 
development of the Old Post Office, including requiring that GSA submit 
a viable development plan for the Old Post Office before any Federal 
funds be used to convert the space. Notwithstanding these efforts, the 
desired development has not occurred.
  H.R. 5001, the ``Old Post Office Building Redevelopment Act of 
2008'', authorizes the Administrator of General Services to enter into 
an agreement to redevelop the Old Post Office Building in a manner that 
is beneficial to the Federal Government. This bill will not only help 
spur the redevelopment of this building but also help ensure that the 
taxpayers get the fullest return from this historic and treasured 
structure.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in support of H.R. 5001, the ``Old 
Post Office Building Redevelopment Act of 2008.''
  Mrs. DRAKE. Madam Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield 
back the balance of my time.
  Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time, so I 
too am prepared to yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) that the House 
suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 5001, as amended.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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