Public Buildings Service

Providing quality workspaces to Federal customer agencies 

Southeast sunbelt public buildings service at a glance

The Southeast Sunbelt Region’s Public Buildings Service (PBS) is comprised of almost 760 employees across eight southeastern states. The region currently manages 141 federally-owned facilities and leases space in close to 1,361 commercially-owned facilities, totaling approximately 44.4 million rentable square feet (19.7 million owned and 29.7 million leased). Our leased rentable square feet total is second among GSA regions only to the National Capital Region. The Southeast Sunbelt supports 20 Federal Judicial Districts and four Federal Judicial Circuits, which is significantly more than any other region. 

Moreover, the Southeast Sunbelt regionally manages 67 historic buildings including four contributing buildings to National Historic Landmark Districts and oversees robust art programs, which include 444 works in the Fine Arts Collection and 78 in the Art in Architecture program. The region is also in the process of assessing various modern buildings for eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places, which could result in adding to our historic buildings total in the near future.  

Energy and environment

Our region is prepared to meet the challenges of Executive Order 13693 “Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance.”  Our Energy & Sustainability Branch is aligning resources and building a program with its cornerstones being: 

Education & awareness to instill green behavior throughout our organization through providing sustainability and green building training, demonstrating tangible and intangible benefits, and ensuring environmental impact is factored into all business decisions;

Design review to ensure all new construction and alteration projects adopt the sustainable principles and are energy efficient;

Re-commissioning and retro commissioning of existing buildings to their optimum performance;

Project development to identify energy and water conservation retrofit opportunities; and

Sustainable operations to ensure that after building commissioning, optimum performance is maintained for the long-term through remote monitoring and ongoing technical support.

Southeast Sunbelt is also prioritizing the agency’s goal of establishing itself as a Green Proving Ground (GPG) for emerging technologies and attaining a zero-environmental footprint.  We are promoting the greening of our building inventory through the use of renewable energy; use of green and biobased products, implementation of pilot projects using GPG technologies,  incorporation of myriad innovative green designs, construction and management approaches; and by developing tracking methods to measure greenhouse gas emissions. The sustainable operations also include ensuring customer satisfaction through adequate indoor air quality, providing optimum comfort to tenants, tenants education, and executing tenant satisfaction survey, while also achieving energy efficiency and water efficiency through meeting federally mandated Guiding Principles requirements, Executive Order requirements, GSA policy, and going beyond where technology permits.

Smart buildings technology for automatic detection and measurement
Building automation
Some highlights of actions recently taken and for the future:
• We took on the goal of reducing the use of potable water by 6%.
• Scope 3 greenhouse gases were reduced by employees taking public transportation (Where available, 75% of employees use it).  
• A  High Performance Green Building Team was created to guide service centers in meeting the guiding principles.
• In future, reductions in greenhouse gases from employee commuting will be accomplished primarily through teleworking.  In addition, the use of video teleconferencing will be used when possible rather than travel.

Environmental impact reduction - All  projects are reviewed for determining significance of environmental impacts prior to being implemented.  Environmental impacts are identified and  minimized in order to reduce greenhouse gas emission, reduce carbon footprint, impact on natural resources, health and safety impacts, impacts due to contamination, and better planning and decision making. Mitigative measures are implemented during design construction and/or renovation process to ensure the environmental impacts are minimized.