When classes start this fall at Berkeley College, students at the business school’s 130 William St. campus may notice an unusual flurry of activity in their building, as the U.S. General Services Administration has leased 8,000 feet of space on the fourth floor in preparation for the 2010 U.S. Census.

Over the next two years, hundreds of government employees and volunteers will pour in and out each day as they gather demographic data about New York City residents.

The office building at 130 William St. is one of 150 spaces the GSA, represented by the brokerage firm UGL Equis, has leased across the country in the past three months to facilitate the first phase of the census. Called Early Local Census Offices, the spaces are being prepared for occupancy, which will commence between August 15 and October 31, according to the national project manager for the Census 2010 project, Brian Adelstein, a UGL Equis vice president. Between 340 and 370 more offices will open nationally next summer to assist with later phases of the census, he said.

A senior associate at UGL Equis, Douglas Levine, represented the tenant in the 28-month lease for 130 William St. The GSA also leased a second New York location, at 2444 86th St. in Brooklyn; it will eventually secure locations in Albany, Buffalo, Syracuse, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Nassau County, Queens, and Westchester County. Brokers Jim Searl and Brad Gerla of CB Richard Ellis represented the landlord, 130 William Street Holdings, LLC, which is installing a new lobby that should be completed by October 15.

The space at 130 William St. likely will house a staff of 50 to 60, plus hundreds of field workers, the assistant regional census manager for the New York region, Allison Cenac, said. Starting this fall, census workers will go door to door to update the Census Bureau’s address list and then gather responses from residents who didn’t respond to census questionnaires sent by mail.

Census offices have very specific needs, such as double-wide doors and loading docks to accommodate supplies such as reams and reams of paper, including census questionnaires and informational fliers for respondents, Mr. Adelstein said.

“The taking of the census is a very big selling job to get people to give their information,” he said. “It’s a lot of paper, both coming in and going out.”

Moreover, timing is of the essence in leasing census offices, which require two-year leases. “The timing and the economics have to work,” Mr. Adelstein said. “A lot of the other stuff we’re able to negotiate.”

Spaces that may not be attractive to other businesses, for one reason or another, sometimes get snatched up for the Census Bureau, he said, as government regulations require the GSA to take the lowest bid that conforms to its needs.

“Government regulations take the personal opinion out of it,” Mr. Adelstein said.

There is some 100,000 square feet of available space at 130 Williams St. and there have been few tenants in the building other than Berkeley College for the past two years, according to CB Richard Ellis. The asking rent at the building is $45 to $49 a square foot.

The search for space is repeated every decade. Only a small percentage of centers are repeated from census to census, Mr. Adelstein said, in part because population shifts require them to be situated in different places. Since 2000, for example, more Americans have moved to the South and West, so more centers will be required in those regions of the country.

Finding enough appropriate space for census offices has required a “Herculean effort” on the part of brokers, Mr. Adelstein said, because the leases are so short-term and spaces must fit the very specific nature of the Census Bureau’s needs. “They’re not really a lessor’s dream,” he said. “It took a significant effort.”