Episode 5 – GSA Lease Real Estate Tax Reimbursement and SSA at a Standstill

In this episode, I briefly discussed some upcoming interviews that I will be conducting for the GOV CRE Podcast. I then touch on a recurring issue I am coming across with my clients regarding Real Estate taxes and then offer a potential solution…. let me remind you! Finally, if you are experiencing massive delays with a SSA procurement, I describe my personal experiences with this phenomenon and the reasons I am being told underlying what I hope to be a temporary issue.

Highlights of the Topics Discussed:

  1. Upcoming interview with Keith LaShier the Senior Vice President, Real Estate Asset Consulting on the GOV CRE Podcast
  2. Working to sit down with a Leader within the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
    • Traditionally, Government Service Administration (GSA) will only honor or enter into full serviced building leases. However, recently BLM has requested non-full-service leases.
    • BLM made this choice because they don’t want to pay the premiums that come with Electric and Gas Utilities being managed by the landlords. They still want other full-service items such as janitorial and snow removal services but would like to remove the energy-generated utilities because of those padded premiums.
    • Because of this change, I would like to sit down with a leader within BLM to get a more in-depth understanding of their side of the story to help better understand their full motivations.
  3. Real Estate Taxes – Real Estate Tax Adjustments & Reimbursement
    • Real Estate Taxes has been something we have discussed thoroughly, but it has come up again and again in the last couple weeks, so I wanted to remind everyone of a few great additional resources on this topic:
    • In addition to what has already been discussed with Real Estate Taxes, I wanted to take the time to thoroughly discuss the GSA Real Estate Tax Adjustments & Reimbursement. Several clients of ours have been struggling with this, and potentially losing money, so we wanted to discuss how this process works and why it is so important.
    • If you have questions on this process or need additional help please send us an email, we would be happy to help! chad@arcoresolutions.com
  4. Lease Procurements for SSA
    • The SSA is seemingly at a standstill (I have several deals in limbo for 6 months) and myself and others in the industry have been trying to figure out why.
    • What we have learned is GSA is not getting the Occupancy Agreement Forms they need from the SSA signed and returned in a reasonable time. The first cause of this is the SSA has reorganized their process for signing and returning these forms are still getting used to the change. The second cause is the Reimbursable Work Authorization Approval (RWAA), which is a check from the SAA to the GSA for any overages above the tenant improvements, is also at standstill which is slowing the lease procurement process.

HAVE GSA LEASING QUESTIONS? CONTACT ARCO!