PrintFebruary 17, 2011
The ObamaCare Real Estate Boom
Investor's Business Daily reports that due to ObamaCare, Health and Human Services is on track to become "the first $1 trillion federal agency." This expansion of government leads to new hiring (e.g., 650 new employees to work in the Medicare/Medicaid Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight), and these new federal employees need desks and cubicles. Thus it's not surprising to read in the Montgomery County Gazette:
The federal government proved the savior for commercial real estate in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., last year and 2011 is shaping up the same way. That was the good news at a conference Wednesday on General Services Administration leasing...The GSA [is looking] for about 1.5 million square feet just for Health and Human Services agencies.
For comparison, the tallest building in Boston, the 60-story John Hancock tower, has 1.7 million square feet of office space. It's no wonder that Montgomery County and the other suburbs that ring the Leviathan of federal government are the wealthiest in the country.
