The General Services Administration is considering tapping into the rapidly growing coworking market to meet part of its space needs across the U.S., a currently unused alternative for one of the largest consumers of leased office space in the country.

The federal government’s main, civilian real estate arm plans to issue a “Federal Workspace as a Service” solicitation in the first quarter of 2020, according to a GSA spokesperson.

Details of the solicitation are still being worked through, but the short-term nature and flexibility of coworking is something that could naturally lend itself to a portion of the federal government’s 376.9 million square feet of owned or leased space across the U.S. The GSA does not occupy or have memberships at any coworking facilities in D.C., but it is one of the region’s largest occupiers of leased office space at around 50 million square feet.

Those spaces range from a few hundred square feet on up to a several hundred thousand square feet, and from short-term stays of just a few years to a few decades.

Coworking space could emerge as a viable option for some of those requirements, such as swing space while it renovates facilities in other buildings or to cover the gap between when one lease expires and the next begins.

The federal government is slow to adopt to new innovations, said former GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini during a Global Workplace Association panel discussion at MGM National Harbor on Friday.

At the same time, he said he believes coworking is something it is bound to adopt to meet immediate needs such as responding to natural disasters in parts of the country where it does not have vacant office space.