Extreme Real Estate... Imagine that your company occupied every square foot of space in every office building in Manhattan. How big would your company be? Well, it would be almost as big as the federal government. In fact, the GSA portfolio totals 350 million square feet located in 7,000 buildings in 1,000 communities across the country.

Now, how would you manage the leased-property portion of your portfolio (which totals 165 million square feet)? If you were the GSA's Public Building Service (PBS), you would sign a National Broker Contract "to increase the capacity to handle transactions in order to spend more time with customers."

That's Chris Reutershan, Assistant Commissioner, National Customer Services Management, Public Buildings Service, speaking to me last week and sounding just like a real estate director in corporate America.

The PBS recently awarded its National Broker Contract to four service providers -- Jones Lang LaSalle, Staubach, Studley and Trammell Crow -- as its exclusive tenant representation service providers.

This is a "no-cost" contract, meaning that the brokers' compensation will be paid entirely by the lessor. Each firm will handle assignments nationwide, divided equally among them.

The effective date of the contract was April 1, and the regions are in the process of issuing task orders. PBS expects each service provider to rebate a portion of its commission from each assignment, depending upon the market, to "reduce the rent during the first months of the lease."

Now here's the interesting part. The happier the PBS and its customers are, the more likely the service provider is to land a disproportionate share of future assignments. According to Reutershan, 12 to 18 months into the National Broker Contract, PBS can decide to award more work to the firm(s) with higher ratings.

After each assignment, the service provider will be evaluated on 17 "deliverables" -- like market study, lease negotiation and construction build-out -- on a 1 to 5-point scale (low to high). And the firm will be given a separate overall score.

The final rent will be compared with "an SIOR benchmark rental rate range." And 90 days after occupancy, the Gallup Organization will survey all participants and rate their satisfaction with the transaction. The PBS will incorporate all this information as it decides on future assignments.

--Peter Pike