CLEVELAND — Cuyahoga County U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH-11) is blasting a purported plan by the General Services Administration (GSA) to sell the Anthony J. Celebrezze Federal Building in downtown Cleveland, calling it “a slap in the face to the City.”
A GSA employee told the congresswoman the administration plans to sell the 32-story skyscraper within the next three years, according to a member of Brown’s staff, who added that the federal agency believes it would be more cost-effective to lease out office space than to renovate the 59-year-old structure. The Celebreeze building currently houses more than 4,000 federal workers from various departments, including the Veterans Benefits Administration, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, the Department of Homeland Security, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Brown’s office agreed that the building is due for millions of dollars in maintenance, but claimed they hadn’t been shown the GSA’s cost-benefit analysis and therefore could not say whether it was accurate. GSA also told the congresswoman’s team that the plan is to keep all current workers employed in the Cleveland area, but to the staffer who spoke to 3News, that declaration “doesn’t pass the smell test.”…