The National Guard Bureau has awarded a $292 million task order to lodging firm Placemakr to house thousands of troops deployed to Washington, D.C., moving them out of scattered hotel rooms and into apartment-style units as President Donald Trump’s federal law-enforcement mission in the capital approaches its one-year mark and stretches toward January 2029.
The task order, issued June 22 and announced publicly Thursday, will provide up to 2,000 apartment-style lodging units for Guardsmen assigned to Joint Task Force-District of Columbia.
Officials called it the largest interagency lodging acquisition in Guard history, structured jointly by the National Guard Bureau, the D.C. National Guard, and the U.S. General Services Administration.
The award flows from Executive Order 14252, “Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful,” which Trump signed in March 2025 and established the federal task force now coordinating the deployment.
According to the Guard’s own release, about 5,000 Guard members from 15 states and D.C. are currently supporting the mission, having previously stayed in hotels scattered across the region.
Officials framed the contract primarily in cost terms, with government negotiations achieving pricing roughly 49% below projected short-term commercial hotel rates and about 27% below standard GSA schedule pricing for lodging and housekeeping.
“This contract delivers stable, secure housing for our Soldiers and Airmen while achieving significant cost savings for the government,” said Monica Williams, executive director of acquisitions for the National Guard Bureau, in a release.
The deal runs three years, according to the Guard. It closed in 85 days, a pace the Bureau described as roughly one-third of the four to six months typically required for a comparable acquisition.
GSA and the D.C. National Guard used a streamlined procurement process in which vendors delivered oral presentations rather than full written proposals. The award also held despite an agency-level vendor protest that was reviewed and denied.
The housing move follows the Pentagon’s confirmation earlier this month that the D.C. deployment will run through the end of Trump’s term in January 2029, an extension confirmed by the Pentagon after months of shorter renewals.
Guard Chief Gen. Steve Nordhaus credited the mission with saving more than 235 lives and performing more than 530 medical assists since it began roughly 11 months ago.
Local officials and D.C. residents have continued to challenge the deployment as an infringement on home-rule authority, arguing that the extended presence outpaces any documented public-safety justification.
The practical effect for the District is twofold: consolidating Guard personnel in dedicated units for the mission’s duration and returning what the Bureau described as a significant block of commercial hotel rooms to the private market ahead of peak tourism season.
The Bureau did not disclose when troops would begin moving into the new accommodations.
