U.S. General Services Administration e-commerce platform launched for Boston market

The U.S. General Services Administration plans to initiate use of its Automated Advanced Acquisition Program (AAAP), an e-commerce platform that helps drive savings to taxpayers by improving federal leasing efficiency, in the Boston real estate market. GSA introduced AAAP at a special Industry Day at the O'Neill Federal Building. Over 100 local Realtors, brokers, lessors and building managers interested in leasing space to the federal government were invited to attend this event. "AAAP revolutionizes the way GSA secures the best rental rates for lease space in the market ," said Bob Zarnetske, GSA Regional administrator for New England. "With AAAP, GSA is able to deliver lease space quickly for our federal customers while saving taxpayer dollars." AAAP is one of several procurement platforms GSA uses to lease office space in metropolitan areas, and is currently in use in Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Chicago and New York. With more than a half million rentable square feet of leases coming up for renewal in the Boston Metropolitan area, AAAP will be a tremendous tool in tackling this workload. It consolidates and streamlines the leasing process, not only improving customer satisfaction, but also increasing the ease of doing business with the federal government. The program reduces the costs related to the acquisition of real property lease assets, improves the supply and pricing of space offered to the government, and improves customer satisfaction by delivering space more quickly and efficiently. How does AAAP work? By incorporating cutting-edge Geographic Information System technology, AAAP reduces the offer submission and evaluation time from weeks to seconds. It helps businesses interact efficiently and effectively with the federal government, and provides one-stop online access to information. In expanding electronic government, the AAAP has advanced the goals of GSA by establishing itself as the first e-commerce leasing application in the federal government. The program is effective for managing a large volume of smaller leases and has evolved into a multiple award platform that handles general office space requirements ranging from 2,000 s/f up to 60,000 s/f. The Automated Advanced Acquisition Program is one of many e-commerce initiatives that help support the government's efforts to operate more efficiently and effectively, and save taxpayer dollars.