U.S. Customs and Border Protection Signs 139K-SF Lease in Jamaica, Queens

The federal government’s General Services Administration has signed a lease in Jamaica, Queens, for office space that will serve as a new operations facility for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, Commercial Observer has learned.

CBP will relocate from Building 77 at John F. Kennedy International Airport to 139,377 square feet of office space at the Edward J. Minskoff Equities-owned building called One Aviation Plaza, which has an address of 159-30 Rockaway Boulevard, according to tenant broker CBRE (CBRE).

The length of the lease and the asking rent were not immediately disclosed.

“This was one of the most significant regional transactions the federal agency has recently undertaken,” CBRE’s Vincent LaManna, who represented the tenant alongside Richard Freel, Maria Kobe and Ralph Guiffre, said in a statement. “One Aviation Plaza became the logical choice given its immediate access to the airport, its high-level security infrastructure, with a landlord with the proven ability to create the 21st century HQ the agency envisioned.”

JLL (JLL)’s Joseph Brennan and Chloe Edwards negotiated on behalf of Edward J. Minskoff Equities and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CBP will share the building with another agency — the Federal Aviation Administration’s Eastern Region headquarters — and the deal comes as the federal government is gearing up for a wave of return to office as proposed by President-elect Donald Trump. 

Just after winning the Nov. 5 election, Trump appointed Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to a task force to cut federal spending, and the two have since also taken aim at bringing federal workers back to the office more days of the week through the newly formed Department Of Government Efficiency.

Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.