Careers in federal government are known for job security and generous pensions, but also for layers of bureaucracy and cold, gray, impersonal buildings.

The bureaucracy is unlikely to change, but soon, government workers around the country could be organizing hurricane relief, investigating regulatory infractions or rubber-stamping Social Security payments while natural light flows around them and kombucha pours freely from tapped kegs.

The federal government is on the hunt for coworking space, and it wants to lease from small businesses. The General Services Administration has put out a request for proposals, seeking coworking space around the country.

The request is classified as a "Partial Small Business Set-Aside," which means that the government is aiming to award at least part of this contract to small businesses. Contract amounts could range from $1K to $10M per vendor. The RFP asks for pricing on coworking space over a one-year period, plus four additional one-year periods.

Francesco De Camilli, Colliers International vice president and head of flexible workspace consulting, said that the GSA has a few one-off deals for coworking already in place, but "this is the first formal RFP at a national level." (De Camilli was formerly the chief operating officer of Bisnow Media.)

The GSA occupies some 370M SF of office space nationwide, so to have even 2% or 5% of its space in consideration for coworking "represents a huge opportunity," De Camilli said. "Their approach is to pick the best-in-market operators, not to establish a single point of contact with a national platform."