The Feds' Chief Landlord: Unusual Friend of Cities.(Peck, Robert)(Brief Article)

Nation's Cities Weekly, October, 2000 by Peirce, Neal

The federal government has never had a Chief Landlord quite like Robert Peck.

Historic preservation, downtown revitalization, fostering quality civic spaces--these are among Peck's unconventional goals as the General Service Administration's commissioner of public buildings.

Peck's job is a management challenge by any measure--overseeing 350 million square feet of space in 8,000 buildings scattered across 1,600 cities nationwide.

What's more, he came on the job a few months after the bombing of the Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City. That has meant imposing thousands of security measures--all the while trying to save the people's buildings from a bunker mentality.

The GSA, in times past, was known as an agency whose...

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