Public Buildings Service
The Public Buildings Service (PBS), as landlord to the Federal government, provides a superior workplace for the Federal employee and superior value to the U.S. taxpayer. By providing its customers with quality work environments, PBS enables Federal agencies to better serve the public. As the largest public real estate organization in the nation, PBS provides workspace and workplace solutions to over 100 Federal agencies.
GSA continues to be a leader in asset management and sets Federal asset management standards through its leadership on the Federal Real Property Council (FRPC). In the first quarter of FY 2006, GSA was recognized as the first Federal agency to achieve ”green” status on the Federal Real Property Asset Management initiative of the PMA. Throughout FY 2007, GSA has maintained this green rating in both progress and status by continuing to achieve the PMA right-sizing goals of utilization, disposal, operation and maintenance, and physical condition. In FY 2007, GSA improved asset utilization in leased assets by reducing the vacancy rate to 1.1 percent, maintained an asset utilization rate in government-owned assets of over 90 percent, disposed of 23 vacant or under-utilized properties, maintained operating costs in office and similarly serviced space below private sector levels, and targeted reinvestment dollars toward core assets in the portfolio in order to improve the physical condition of the portfolio. GSA’s asset management practices and its progress towards rightsizing its portfolio of assets were commended when the asset management program maintained its “effective” rating and improved its score to 96 percent on the OMB PART in FY 2007.
Performance Highlights
PBS completed four PART reviews of its major programs: New Construction, Space Acquisition by Lease, Asset Management of Real Property, and Real Property Disposal. Leasing and Disposal are rated by OMB as “moderately effective,” while Asset Management and New Construction are rated “effective.”
The asset management program was re-evaluated via an OMB PART review in FY 2007. As a result, the program retained its “effective” rating and increased its overall score since its FY 2004 review. PBS received this outstanding rating by continuing to make progress in achieving its two long-term outcome goals—achieving a viable self-sustaining inventory and reducing energy consumption.
The following paragraphs summarize FY 2007 PBS major performance results by business line activity.
NEW CONSTRUCTION:
PBS manages an $11 billion, multi-year capital investment program to build new Federal buildings, courthouses, and land ports of entry; and to renovate and modernize existing Federal facilities including courthouses, agency headquarters, office buildings, laboratories, and infrastructure. The program includes over 337 capital projects in the pre-planning, site acquisition, design, and construction phases. In FY 2007, PBS delivered four new courthouses, two Federal buildings, and one new land ports of entry construction project. PBS awarded design contracts for seven new land ports of entry, one new courthouse, eight new Federal buildings, and 23 major repairs and alterations (R&A) projects. In FY 2007, PBS awarded construction contracts for five new land ports of entry, four new courthouses, two new Federal buildings, and 29 major R&A projects.
PBS continues to set the example for the government and the private sector in making sustainable design and energy efficiency integral in all of its new facilities and major renovations. To date, PBS has earned a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating for 20 new buildings: nine are government-owned; 11 are build-to-suit leased projects. Of these, five achieved “silver” and eight achieved “gold” level recognition. PBS has registered another 70 buildings under the LEED system.
PBS continued to develop and implement business process improvements to enhance the performance of the capital construction program, and made significant progress on its initiative to develop and implement standard scope of work/contract template tools, drafting 14 standard scope of work templates for use in the delivery of major capital construction projects. This effort will lead to improved national consistency in Architect/Engineer contracts and construction services, as well as construction management services, feasibility studies, and prospectus development studies; and to capitalize on best practices, lessons learned, institutional knowledge, and collective project expertise. PBS also updated the Project Managers Handbook and the Facilities Standards for PBS, and developed a variance tracking report as a management tool to assess capital project performance.
The PBS Office of the Chief Architect (OCA) provided national peer professionals for 16 Architect/Engineer Design Excel-lence selections, as well as 33 Design Peer Reviews of ongoing capital projects—27 Art in Architecture Peer Reviews—and arranged nine Design Concept Presentations for capital projects to the PBS Commissioner. The OCA developed and produced three new videos in FY 2007: San Francisco Federal Building: Creating an Extraordinary Place; 2006 Design Awards; and a video to open the national forum on Federal courthouse design, Function, Form, and Meaning: Design Excellence in Federal Courthouses. The OCA also developed a National Building Information Guide in support of PBS’s mission to improve capital project delivery.
In May 2007, the American Institute of Architects acknowledged the distinguished work of GSA’s OCA and the Design Excellence Program with the 2007 Institute Honors for Collaborative Achievement. PBS also recently received an Urban Land Institute award for excellence for the Courthouse in Erie, PA; and CoreNet Global honored the new San Francisco Federal Building.
SPACE ACQUISITION BY LEASE:
PBS introduced new efficiencies to its leasing program to make PBS a more customer-driven organization and to enhance the role of the realty specialist to become a project manager and strategic partner with the customer. The implementation of the National Broker Contract program is having a major impact on PBS’s ability to deliver high-quality, reasonably-priced workplace solutions to its customers. Under the newly created Office of Real Estate Acquisition, PBS is developing consistent enterprise-wide operations and enhancing communications with brokers and customers while stressing both rents achieved and savings accrued. Today, almost half of the portfolio is leased space, and customers find leasing an attractive alternative when it is consistent with their mission achievements. PBS has lowered the fee that it charges customer agencies to acquire and administer their leased space from eight to seven percent for cancelable space and from six to five percent for non-cancelable space. This change will be effective for FY 2008.
ASSET MANAGEMENT OF REAL PROPERTY:
PBS continues to be a leader in asset management. Through its unceasing attention to rightsizing its portfolio, PBS is progressing towards its long-term goal of achieving a viable, self-sustaining inventory with an average return on equity (ROE) of at least six percent for 80 percent of its government-owned assets.
PBS is also progressing toward meeting its long-term energy goal of reducing energy consumption in GSA Federal buildings by two percent per year for a cumulative reduction of 20 percent by FY 2015. GSA surpassed its FY 2007 goal of a two percent reduction, and is working on continuing this trend for future years. Currently, there are $19.86 million in efficiency investments underway in GSA buildings nationwide. These investments are expected to deliver an additional 171,377 million Btu and $2.82 million in savings each year. These achievements underscore PBS’s commitment to energy management and the resulting savings of taxpayer dollars.
REAL PROPERTY DISPOSAL:
In FY 2007, the Office of Real Property Disposal was instrumental in the disposal of 23 GSA properties valued at approximately $105 million. These disposals have already provided revenues of $69 million for the Federal Buildings Fund (FBF). As the service provider of choice for real property disposal, an additional 355 properties valued at approximately $146 million were disposed of for other Federal agencies. In its mission of assisting other agencies, PBS also provided 30 targeted asset reviews to help agencies in their compliance with Executive Order 13327, Federal Real Property Asset Management.
The following section presents the PBS performance by GSA strategic goals.