Shontel Brown

WASHINGTON - The General Services Administration’s independent watchdog is auditing the planned sale of Cleveland’s Anthony J. Celebrezze Federal Building and U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown wants it to weigh her longstanding concerns about unloading its office space for around 4,000 federal workers.

GSA, which manages federally owned real estate, formally announced its plan to sell the 1,194,675-square-foot office building last year as part of government-wide cost cutting efforts. Selling the building as part of President Donald Trump’s plan to shrink the government’s real estate portfolio would save taxpayers over $180 million in maintenance and redevelopment costs, GSA’s sales announcement said.

After selling the building on E. 9th Street that opened in 1966, the agency says it would rent space for the federal employees it currently houses, which include workers for the Internal Revenue Service, the Veterans Benefits Administration, the Department of Homeland Security and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It is the largest federal building in Ohio targeted for sale under the Trump administration’s property-disposal push.

GSA’s Office of Inspector General lists the review among the Public Buildings Service audits in its Fiscal Year 2026 Audit Plan, under the title “Audit of PBS’s Planned Disposal of the Anthony J. Celebrezze Federal Building in Cleveland, Ohio.”

It indicates the inspector general will examine whether the decision to sell the building “represents a cost-effective solution that will result in taxpayer savings” and whether the disposal actions comply with applicable laws, regulations, policies and guidance Cleveland.com asked the GSA inspector general’s press office about the audit Wednesday and had not received a response.

Brown, a Warrensville Heights Democrat whose district includes the building, has questioned the proposed sale since the idea was broached. She has asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether GSA followed proper procedures to sell the building. At an April congressional hearing, she said the sale could destabilize essential federal services, displace thousands of government workers, and deal a blow to the local economy.

“What they are really doing is looting the federal government and stripping it for parts,” Brown told the hearing on reducing the federal government’s real estate portfolio.

On Wednesday, Brown sent a letter to Byron G. Bustos, the OIG’s associate deputy assistant inspector general for auditing real property, that said she remains “deeply concerned that this Administration pushed GSA to pursue the sale of the Celebrezze Federal Building without transparency, without the due diligence required by law, and without concern for what is best for local constituents or taxpayers,”

“The future of the Celebrezze Federal Building is not a line on a spreadsheet in Cleveland, it is a major issue impacting our economy, our federal workforce, and our access to federal agencies and services,” Brown’s letter said.

Recognizing that the inspector general’s office can’t discuss its ongoing audit work, her letter reiterated her longtime concerns over the potential sale instead of seeking information its examination of the project.

She said that despite repeated requests from her office, GSA’s Public Buildings Service “has not produced the underlying analyses or documentation supporting their conclusion to dispose of the building.

“As a result, there remains no publicly available decision record demonstrating how PBS concluded that disposition, not to mention accelerated disposition, represents the most cost-effective alternative or how it documented compliance with applicable statutory and policy requirements,” her letter continued.

She asked the inspector general to examine whether GSA’s decision to sell the property relied on a complete lifecycle cost analysis rather than a single deferred-maintenance figure, whether it used a current independent appraisal given volatile commercial real estate conditions, and whether it documented alternatives such as continued ownership or phased modernization. She also asked whether it complied with several laws that govern federal property sales, and whether it adequately documented the sale’s impact on tenant agencies and federal employees.

“My objective throughout this process has been straightforward: to ensure that any decision involving one of Northeast Ohio’s most significant federal assets is made transparently, supported by rigorous analysis, compliant with federal law, and in the best interests of taxpayers,” Brown wrote.