The Trump administration’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is canceling federal leases across the country and the movement has now reached central Massachusetts properties.
DOGE terminated seven commercial leases associated with the Food and Drug Administration, Department of Agriculture and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.
“We’ve been DOGE-ed,” said Christopher Egan, president of Carruth Capital in Westborough, told the Worcester Business Journal.
WHAT HAS DOGE CUT SO FAR?
The canceled leases add up to an annual sum of $1.34 million and a total of 60,182 square feet, according to a WBJ report.
This represents 37% of the federal government’s leased space in Central Massachusetts, according to the General Services Administration (GSA).
DOGE data, as of last month, shows about $100 million in lease reductions. Approximately $97 million of which were majority-office spaces, according to a Bloomberg analysis of GSA data.
ELON MUSK’S DOGE MAKES ANOTHER HIRING PUSH
These cuts come as President Donald Trump’s administration vows to significantly slash the size of the federal government.
These DOGE cuts are a continuation of scaling back the government’s footprint, something GSA has been reportedly cutting down since 2023, when they knocked out 18 million square feet of leased space. However, the government’s rent roll did not change much during the first Trump administration or under former President Joe Biden, a Bloomberg analysis shows.
According to CoStar, the number of canceled federal office leases nationwide has doubled since February, affecting all U.S. states except for Rhode Island and Indiana.
DOGE’s website claims to have achieved total estimated savings of $65 billion, which it says is a “combination of fraud detection/deletion, contract/lease cancellations, contract/lease renegotiation, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes and regulatory savings.”
Its website listed contracts and lease cancellations which tallied to $12,751,900,462 as of Feb. 24, with the DOGE team’s last listed update being Feb. 17. However, the website doesn’t offer a detailed explanation of how it’s accounting for the other $43 billion in overall savings it claims.
