The James V. Hansen Federal Building in Ogden was included in an updated list of assets to be sold off.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Protesters gather during a rally to protest the layoffs of federal workers in front of the James V. Hansen Federal Building in Ogden on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025. The Department of Government Efficiency plans to lay off thousands of IRS employees, including workers at the Ogden office.
A second Utah federal building, the James V. Hansen Federal Building in Ogden, has been identified for disposal by the Trump administration.
The building was added Thursday to an evolving list of properties the General Services Administration (GSA) considers eligible for “accelerated disposition” and hopes to sell, and comes after a number of Utah buildings have been added and removed from the list of properties in recent weeks.
The April 10 announcement included the Hansen building among a list of seven properties in seven states. The list was posted on the GSA website this week, and is part of the agency’s efforts to downsize and “to reduce the burden on the American taxpayer while also delivering space that enables its agency customers to achieve their missions,” as the website reads.
The James V. Hansen Federal Building, which was completed in 1965, currently houses federal workers from a number of agencies, including the IRS and Social Security Administration. According to the GSA, the sell offs do not necessarily mean that existing tenants will have to move.
“GSA could dispose of an asset, thereby relieving the government of significant liabilities, and lease the space back from the buyer,” an FAQ on the GSA website reads.
Among the seven buildings included on the list Thursday were five office buildings, including the Hansen building, as well as a service center in New Mexico and a customs warehouse in Hawaii. The Hansen building, at more than 173,000 square feet, was the second largest building on the April 10 list.
“GSA remains committed to solving the long-term problems that exist in our federal portfolio of assets,” an FAQ by the agency reads. “Decades of funding deficiencies have resulted in many of the assets in our portfolio becoming functionally obsolete and unsuitable for use by our federal workforce.”
The Hansen building was originally included in a December 2024 list of eight buildings the GSA, under then-President Joe Biden, intended to sell. The effort, they estimated, would save $475 million over 10 years.
“It would cost $47.6 million to address the building’s seismic deficiencies and facade issues and an analysis determined it was more feasible to dispose of the building and move all tenants into leases,” the agency told KSL of the Hansen building at the time.
Last month, now under the purview of President Donald Trump, the GSA released a list of 443 buildings they aimed to sell off, including the Wallace F. Bennett Federal Building in downtown Salt Lake City, an Internal Revenue Service center in Ogden and a facility on Tabernacle Street in St. George. The Hansen building was not included on the list.
Several weeks later, however, the list was updated, after the agency said they had received an “overwhelming” response and were moving to refine the process. The three Utah buildings were removed and were replaced instead with a list of only eight buildings, none of which were in Utah.
Later, on March 31, the GSA updated the list with eight additional buildings designated for accelerated sell-off, including the J. Will Robinson Federal Building in Provo. None of the original three buildings included in the March 4 announcement have been re-added to the list of priority selloffs.