Dive Brief:
- The Office of Management and Budget has issued a memorandum that provides federal agencies with requirements for office design standards and occupancy targets for owned and leased office space.
- The Management Procedures Memorandum on Building Occupancy Metrics, issued in August, sets a design standard of 150 usable square feet per person in newly acquired office spaces, excluding public-facing facilities and certain lease agreements. Federal agencies must also target a minimum average annual occupancy rate of 60% in defined office spaces — owned or leased general use office spaces primarily designated for office work — that exceed a threshold of 50,000 usable square feet, the OMB says.
- Within nine months of the memo’s issuance, agencies must submit an occupancy calculation plan to the OMB and within 12 months, they must update and submit office space design standards to the OMB and the Federal Real Property Council. Agencies within the National Capital Region have less than 18 months to start reporting on office spaces in the National Capital Region, while those outside of the NCR have nearly 24 months to begin reporting, per the memo.
Dive Insight:
Earlier this year, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill to standardize how the federal government calculates its building occupancy and utilization rates and to reduce or consolidate federal office space where utilization drops below 60%.
The OMB’s directive aligns with that legislative move, as part of a broader effort to push for more efficient use of federal office space. In October 2023, the U.S. Government Accountability Office recommended that the OMB’s deputy director lead the development of benchmarks for measuring utilization in federal buildings.
Federal agencies have been grappling with underutilized or vacant space and a lack of government-wide benchmarks for effective space utilization, according to the GAO. Having more consistent benchmarks and targets for measuring and determining space utilization — a process that involves creating more uniform standards for measuring space and determining what qualifies as full utilization — is paramount, David Marroni, director of physical infrastructure at the GAO, said at a Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearing last September.
The OMB’s latest directive requires agencies to update their office space design standard for usable square feet per person, considering factors such as telework, employee schedules and other agency expectations to ensure that office space is being used efficiently. To design workspaces that reflect actual usage, the OMB encourages agencies to analyze relevant data sets, including historic swipe card data, payroll information and network data to inform their office designs.
While agencies are not obligated to retrofit office space solely to meet the minimum 60% average annual occupancy target in office spaces greater than 50,000 usable square feet, the OMB suggests using this metric as a guiding principle for office consolidations and disposals.
Occupancy metrics will be based on the number of workstations within a defined office space, excluding areas like conference rooms, break rooms and collaboration spaces. Agencies must verify the total number of workstations in that defined office space at least every two years, per the memo. To facilitate annual average occupancy reporting, the OMB said it will designate a reporting tool and format for agencies to use.
Implementation plans must also describe how agencies will calculate such occupancy metrics, including daily occupancy, annual average occupancy, peak occupancy and minimum occupancy. Agencies must provide all metrics required by the memorandum to the OMB, GSA and FRPC upon request. The memorandum says this data sharing is required to “foster coordination among the various agencies toward identifying opportunities for the Federal Government to better manage property and assets.”
The FRPC will determine whether annual average occupancy and annual average usable square feet per person metrics will be made publicly available, per the memorandum.
