2007 Gross Revenues: $7.7 Billion
Number of Offices: 12
Number of Employees: 6,232

It may be a government entity, but the Public Buildings Service of the US General Services Administration operates just like any other private-sector real estate organization. The Washington, DC-based agency handles the ownership, management, leasing and development of commercial space for 400 government agencies and acts as landlord to more than a million federal employees and their contractors.

Yet as much as it’s like any other real estate entity, the GSA’s massive and diverse portfolio makes PBS stand apart from the pack. In charge of everything from federal courthouses and field offices to land ports of entry and laboratories, “our work is challenging on many fronts and is always interesting,” says Winstead. “We respond to our customer agency needs, wherever that is.”

The organization has control over 351.9 million sf of rentable space worth $69.2 billion. Some 90% of the footage is office space, while the balance consists of industrial, laboratory and a smattering of retail facilities. A quarter of the owned inventory consists of historic buildings. For a cost of $2.2 billion, it added 11 new developments totaling 6.5 million sf to its holdings last year, and started another nine projects with 5.9 million sf, worth nearly $2 billion. It now owns 1,513 assets totaling 176.4 million sf of space, with an overall vacancy rate last year of 4.4%. The GSA also contracts for space from privatesector owners and leases it out to various government agencies. It currently has 175.5 million sf leased in 7,106 assets. It typically prefers to lease office space, while retaining ownership of assets like courthouses and land ports of entry. “We have seen significant growth in our portfolio of leased space, from 46 million sf in 1967 to 176 million sf in 2007,” states Winstead. “We expect that trend to continue.”

Like many real estate organizations, PBS is implementing a sustainable design initiative across its properties. Aside from security, greening its portfolio has been a priority for the agency, according to Winstead. “We include a breadth of new sustainability mandates in our solicitations for leased space, including Energy Star certification by 2010, access to public transportation and green cleaning and maintenance requirements.”

In fact, the GSA PBS has established an Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings and requires LED certification for all owned space and lease construction projects. “We are working, per the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, to reduce consumption of fossil fuels 55% by 2010 compared to a 2003 base year,” says Winstead.

The organization has 118 Energy Star buildings in its portfolio and to date, 25 of its properties have earned LED certification with several more registered to qualify. The green effort has resulted in huge payoffs as well; the Public Buildings Service delivered more than $2 billion in energy-conservation savings within its portfolio, and its operating costs were 1.6% lower than those in the private sector. Among its sustainable projects are the John J. Duncan Jr. Federal Building in Knoxville, TN, which won the 2008 BOMA International Earth Award for environmentally sound office building management practices; the San Francisco Federal Building, winner of the 2008 White House Closing the Circle Award; and the modernization of the Portland Pioneer Courthouse, a winner of the Powell Prize for exemplary historic preservation. On top of all that, the GSA PBS is a key player in the presidential transition and will no doubt be quite busy for the next several months. The government has already turned over the Presidential Transition headquarters, some 120,000 sf of fully furnished and computer-equipped office space in Downtown Washington, to President-elect Barack Obama.1