Installation commanders are often forced to divert funds to operate and maintain obsolete and excess structures. These costs come at the expense of more important requirements, and could be avoided by investing in the demolition and disposal of these excess facilities.

As detailed in the 1997 Defense Reform Initiative Report, the Military Services surveyed their installations and identified over 80 million square feet of buildings, including more than 8,300 individual structures, that could be demolished in the near future.

This is a sizeable amount…roughly equivalent to 12.3 Pentagons…and the Pentagon is the largest office building in the world! We need to eliminate these excess structures and redirect the operations and maintenance funds being spent on them to higher priorities.

In 1998 the Department of Defense eliminated about 16 million square feet of excess space, exceeding the goal of 11 million.

This year, we plan to eliminate an additional 14 million square feet.

Meanwhile, we’ll continue to identify excess facilities with an eye on further savings to the taxpayer.