No word yet from the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) about whether new Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) offices could be built in Kent.
“GSA intended to award a lease on behalf of the FAA by late March; however we are still evaluating the final offers and finalizing the lease award details to ensure we make the best decision on behalf of the FAA and the American taxpayer,” said Sally Mayberry, GSA regional public affairs officer, in a Thursday email. “Although we do not have a specific date on the final announcement, we are working diligently to finish these activities in the near future.”
GSA initially announced a March 30 date for a decision to pick a site for a 300,000-square-foot facility to handle about 1,600 employees. Kent wants the regional office facility to be built where the city-owned Riverbend Golf Complex’s par 3 course now sits.
The Kent City Council voted 5-1 in January to approve the conditional sale of the 18.5-acre site for $10 million to a partnership led by the Texas-based Trammell Crow Company, one of the nation’s leading commercial real estate developers and investors.
The FAA occupies about 360,000-square-feet in several different leased locations in Renton. Renton city officials put in a bid to keep the FAA in town. The new offices are scheduled to open in August 2017.
Besides Kent and Renton, the cities of SeaTac and Des Moines also submitted bids for the offices and the four are the finalists for the site, according to a report in early April by the Puget Sound Business Journal.
Mayberry declined to say whether that report about the four finalists is accurate.
“That is procurement sensitive so I can’t provide any information around that,” she said.
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