A Northern California (NorCal) utility company’s real estate portfolio had expanded over decades. As a result, it had become overgrown, costly to maintain and inefficiently used. Recognizing this inefficiency, the company sought to optimize its real estate portfolio in a way that wouldn’t impact the customer experience.

Historically, every employee had an assigned desk or office, and employees who traveled among facilities sometimes had multiple offices. Numerous customer service centers were sprinkled across the utility company’s operating region. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected the demand for these facilities. In the post-pandemic years, many employees continued to work remotely or in a hybrid model, and many of the utility company’s facilities were almost vacant.

The company partnered with JLL to develop and execute a portfolio strategy that would lower costs while minimizing impact to operations and customer experience. JLL provided a team of cross-functional experts to serve as an extension of the company’s internal corporate real estate team and advise on a holistic approach.

The utility company had limited internal staff and few data and analytics tools for building a holistic, data-driven improvement strategy. It also faced regulatory roadblocks impeding its ability to divest properties and implement desired cost-saving tactics.

Using JLL’s advanced portfolio analytics tools, the team helped the utility company develop an end-to-end strategy for right-sizing the portfolio and reducing operating costs by millions annually. For example, the team analyzed commute times to the utility company’s facilities to assess the impact of office consolidations and relocations on employees.

Occupancy planning also played a role, to ensure that administrative offices retained the right kinds of workspaces in the right combinations for a hybrid workforce. To improve operating efficiency, the project team analyzed workflows to plan departmental adjacencies, optimize occupancy and prevent over-crowding in the newly consolidated portfolio.

The utility company decided upon a three-part strategy in which it would: 1) divest excess customer service offices; 2) consolidate its under-utilized portfolio in San Francisco’s East Bay submarket; and 3) consolidate its service centers.

Across the entire real estate portfolio JLL helped the company apply use studies, occupancy planning, facility management tools and workplace strategy to better plan for current and future occupancy and building equipment needs. The work encompassed developing seating plans for the hybrid work model, and implementing a workspace reservation system at key properties. JLL also helped the company reduce its own emissions and utility costs, while tracking the recycling and reuse of discarded furniture, copper, cables and other items.

“This utility company adopted a forward-looking, holistic approach to right-sizing its portfolio with a close look at the real-world needs of employees and customers,” said Jim Hines, Director of Project Management, JLL. “As a result, the organization was able to reduce its occupancy costs significantly while supporting customer service and employee satisfaction.”

Ultimately, the utility company was able to shrink its footprint by 1.74 million square feet across 75 sites, and annual cost avoidance of $36 million. The utility company also achieved an additional $2+million in initial cost savings, and generated $3.5 million in cash from property sales, resulting in a total project value of $42 million. In addition, the smaller footprint removes more than 500 employee cars from NorCal roads.

“The optimized real estate portfolio has reduced utility company’s operating costs by millions of dollars annually and is helping advance its net zero goals,” said Joy Naseath, Account Director and Executive Vice President, JLL. “And, its 15 million-plus NorCal customers benefit because the portfolio savings are passed on in the form of reduced electric bills.”

JLL is currently working with the utility company to implement the third part of the plan—service center consolidation. As of June 2024, JLL continues to analyze and identify sites for consolidation while also acquiring sites and facilities to help the company build a streamlined, state-of-the-art portfolio of customer service centers.