The about-face capped a stunning 18 hours that shook federal agencies and threatened already-wobbly commercial real estate markets. At 2 p.m. Tuesday, the General Services Administration posted a list of 443 properties it was considering for sale — an inventory that ranged from an El Paso toll booth to the Food and Drug Administration’s research campus in Silver Spring, Maryland.
And many of the federal buildings were hubs for taxpayer services in cities across the country, handling small business loans, Social Security benefits and health and safety enforcement.