Washington, DC – The Congressional panel with oversight of the General Services Administration (GSA) and the management of federally owned buildings will hold a field hearing in an empty federal building in downtown Miami, Florida on Monday.
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John L. Mica (R-FL) and Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management Subcommittee Chairman Jeff Denham (R-CA) will lead the Subcommittee hearing.
While GSA has become recently notorious for lavish conferences and junkets to exotic locations, the agency has also been responsible for wasting billions of dollars mismanaging vacant and under-utilized federal properties across this country.
Mica and Denham have held hearings at empty and underused federal buildings in Washington, DC, and have spurred GSA into taking steps to make decisions about those properties. In order to continue highlighting the need to dramatically improve GSA’s wasteful management of property and get the federal government to stop sitting on its assets, the Members of Congress will hold the next hearing in the vacant David W. Dyer Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Miami.
The historic Dyer Courthouse was vacated after GSA completed the new Ferguson Courthouse in 2007, directly across the street. The new courthouse was overbuilt by hundreds of thousands of square feet, at an excess cost of $49 million to the taxpayers, plus $3.8 million in annual costs for maintenance and operation. Furthermore, the new courthouse was built to accommodate nearly 20% more judges than it has.
After the construction of this overbuilt new courthouse for judges that don’t exist was completed five years ago, the 179,000 square foot Dyer courthouse continues to sit empty, costing taxpayers $1.2 million in operating costs (according to November 2011 data from the Federal Real Property Profile). GSA continues to sit on its assets.
Monday’s hearing is open to the public and press. Members of the media who plan to attend, please RSVP to Committee Communications Director Justin Harclerode at 202-225-9446 or Justin.Harclerode@mail.house.gov.
WHAT: Hearing of the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public
Buildings and Emergency Management: “Sitting on Our Assets: The Vacant Federal Courthouse in Miami”
WHO: U.S. Rep. John Mica (R-FL), Chairman, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
U.S. Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA), Chairman, Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management Subcommittee
WHEN: 10:00 a.m., Monday August 6, 2012
WHERE: David W. Dyer Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse
300 NE 1st Avenue
Miami, FL 33132
WITNESSES:
• The Honorable Frank M. Hull, Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
• Mr. David Wise, Director, Physical Infrastructure Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office
• Mr. John Smith, Regional Commissioner, Public Buildings Service, General Services Administration
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