Trump administration listed these four Kansas City federal buildings on list for ‘disposal’

An iconic downtown Kansas City office building with historic status is among those that were up for possible “disposal” by the Trump administration.

The U.S. General Services Administration, which helps manage the federal government’s properties, said in a news release on Tuesday that the agency had identified about 440 government buildings that it could sell, including four addresses in the Kansas City metro area.

The roughly 440 buildings were deemed “non-core assets” and represent nearly 80 million square feet of rentable space.

“Decades of funding deficiencies have resulted in many of these buildings becoming functionally obsolete and unsuitable for use by our federal workforce,” the news release said. “We can no longer hope that funding will emerge to resolve these longstanding issues. GSA’s decisive action to dispose of non-core assets leverages the private sector, drives improvements for our agency customers, and best serves local communities.”

The list of non-core assets, which was to be updated “as assessments progress,” was reduced to 320 properties on Tuesday evening, before it was removed entirely and labeled “coming soon” on Wednesday morning.

Other government properties, such as courthouses, land ports of entry and facilities for defense and national security, are considered “core assets” and will be retained long-term.

According to the GSA, divesting from the non-core assets could save more than $430 million in yearly costs and “ensure taxpayers no longer pay for empty and underutilized federal office space, or the significant maintenance costs associated with long-term building ownership.”

No official decisions have been made about selling the properties or what would happen to them or the workers inside afterward if they are sold. According to Bloomberg, the government has sold more than 1,000 properties since 2015, and the Biden administration proposed selling eight federal buildings in December.

Some properties could be sold and then leased back to the government, Bloomberg reported. The law generally calls for properties that could be sold to be considered for other federal agencies, state or local governments, or nonprofits before auctioning them off.

These are the four federal properties in the Kansas City metro area that the government could sell:

Richard Bolling Federal Building

The Richard Bolling Federal Building, a historic federal office building at 601 E. 12th St., was completed in 1965 and takes up two full blocks with a tall office tower, a lower building and a plaza. The building features modern architecture that resembles the United Nations building in New York City.

Primary tenants include the Social Security Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City District. The building has over 1 million square feet of space.

In 1994, the building was named after the later Rep. Richard Bolling, who represented Kansas City in Congress from 1949 to 1983. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2021.

Thousands of Social Security workers in the Kansas City region are facing sudden uncertainty over their jobs as the agency rolls out plans to drastically restructure offices and cut thousands of jobs nationwide, The Star reported.

Workers worry that cuts could endanger the timely delivery of Social Security payments, and how much of a presence the agency will have after restructuring in Kansas City remains unclear.

2306 and 2312 E. Bannister Road

The Bannister Road building, on the south side of Kansas City, has primary tenants that include the Kansas City IT Center for the United States Marine Corps, an ID office for the Department of Defense, the Central Regional Compliance Office for the Department of Agriculture and a field office for the General Services Administration.

The two addresses have roughly 556,000 square feet of space between them. The structure was built in 1953 and is separate from the former sprawling Bannister Federal Complex across the train tracks, which was demolished in 2019 to make way for an industrial park.

Social Security Administration office

The Social Security Administration office at 850 Nebraska Ave. in Kansas City, Kansas was built in 1971. It has about 14,000 square feet of space.

Other buildings in Missouri could be sold

The list of buildings that could be sold only includes one entry in Kansas: the Social Security Administration office.

Other buildings in Missouri on the list include: the Hannibal Federal Building in Hannibal, the Charles F. Prevedel Federal Building in Overland, the Clyde S. Cahill Memorial Park in St. Louis and the Robert A. Young Federal Building in St. Louis.

The Star’s Jonathan Shorman and Kacen Bayless contributed reporting.

This story was originally published March 6, 2025 at 6:00 AM.