“The National Park Service is committed to upholding our responsibilities to visitors and is working with GSA to ensure facilities or alternative options will be available, as we embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in workforce management,” the National Park Service Office of Public Affairs stated. “As always, NPS will continue to provide critical services, deliver excellent customer service and will remain focused on ensuring that every visitor has the chance to explore and connect with the incredible, iconic spaces of our national parks.”
“We have nothing further for you at this time,” NPS said when asked to be interviewed.
The DOGE website listed the annual rent for the 2,300-square-foot building as $53,544 with zero dollars in total savings and did not provide details or documentation regarding the cancellation or a timeline for the building going forward.
The lease is one of 24 federal leases for office buildings in Arizona scheduled to be canceled, according to the department’s website as of March 11, which range from a $11,013 lease for the Small Business Administration in Show Low to a $305,100 lease for the U.S. Forest Service in Mesa and a $1.1 million lease for offices for public defenders in Phoenix.
Two NPS office leases in Flagstaff, for the headquarters for the Wupatki, Sunset Crater Volcano and Walnut Canyon national monuments and the Southern Colorado Plateau Inventory and Monitoring Network, which monitors national park ecosystems, are also among those that will be canceled.
“Between staff being fired or resigning under duress, the National Park Service has lost 9% of its staff in a matter of weeks,” the National Parks Conservation Association wrote in a press release. “The park staff that remain are stretched thin. And now the administration is making their jobs even harder. Canceling these leases and firing more than 1,000 staff do nothing to make our park service more efficient. These moves by the administration are pushing our parks past the point of no return.”
