Quick Facts

• Bronson was retained by the Government Services Union (GSU) to evaluate its office accommodation options at a critical lease-renewal moment.
• GSU represents employees of Public Services and Procurement Canada, Shared Services Canada, and the Royal Canadian Mint, with its national office based in Ottawa.
• The engagement weighed three pathways across a decade-long financial horizon: continuing to lease, purchasing in Ottawa, or purchasing across the river in Gatineau.
• Bronson built the analysis on three pillars: a strategic fit review, a real estate market scan, and a structured financial model comparing each scenario.
• GSU leadership received a finalized study packaging cost projections, market benchmarks, and supporting recommendations to guide the upcoming accommodation decision.

Project Description

The Government Services Union (GSU) serves as the bargaining agent for workers at Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), Shared Services Canada, and the Royal Canadian Mint. The union’s national headquarters sits within the Public Service Alliance of Canada building on Gilmour Street in Ottawa.

Several years into its current lease, GSU’s staffing footprint had outgrown the space, and the renewal date was approaching. Rather than default into another lease term, leadership wanted to test the alternatives. Was renewal still the right call? Would purchasing make more sense on a longer time horizon? Did Gatineau offer enough cost advantage to justify a cross-river move?

Those questions called for an independent accommodation analysis, and that is what Bronson was brought in to provide. The study scope was scoped around three deliverables: a head-to-head lease-versus-purchase comparison in Ottawa, an Ottawa-versus-Gatineau ownership comparison, and a broader read on market conditions that should factor into the choice.

Business Challenge

A union national office decision is not a simple square-footage exercise. It blends financial modelling, real estate research, growth forecasting, and organizational fit, and every layer affects the others.

The work brought together several distinct demands:

• Three live pathways to model. Lease renewal, Ottawa ownership, and Gatineau ownership all needed to be evaluated on equivalent terms, with each pathway’s distinct cost structure and operational implications fully represented.

• Decade-long financial visibility. The numbers had to look ten years out, not just at year-one cost. Rent escalation, fit-out spending, acquisition cost amortization, and ongoing property overhead all had to be projected forward.
• Cross-jurisdictional comparison. Ottawa and Gatineau represent different markets with different tax regimes, pricing dynamics, and tenant pools. The analysis had to handle both fairly without forcing one into the other’s framework.
• Growth alignment. Whatever space GSU chose needed to accommodate not just current operations but realistic future expansion. Square footage requirements had to be tied to organizational growth assumptions.
• Decision-grade timing. With the lease renewal looming, the work had to land in time to actually influence the call. A perfect study delivered too late would have been useless.
• Defensible data. Recommendations supporting a major capital decision had to rest on published market data and verifiable sample costs, not on rule-of-thumb estimates.

What GSU needed was a study rigorous enough to underwrite the decision, completed quickly enough to inform the renewal window.

Our Solution and Outcome

Bronson ran the engagement as a three-stage analysis with consistent client coordination throughout. The work unfolded across six streams:

1. Strategic Fit Review

• Bronson worked with GSU stakeholders to confirm requirements: floor area, location, room to expand, and day-to-day usage. Every later number traces back to assumptions established here.

2. Ottawa and Gatineau Market Research

• The team examined leasing and ownership costs across both cities, applied published space-allocation benchmarks, and pulled real cost data from currently available properties.

3. Decade-Long Financial Modelling

• Bronson built a structured comparison capturing the four cost categories that drive accommodation decisions: rent, renovation and fit-out, acquisition, and ongoing carrying cost. Each scenario was projected across the full ten-year horizon.

4. Stakeholder Outreach and Data Collection

• Bronson designed outreach questions, engaged market sources, and worked targeted questions through GSU and PSAC representatives. Weekly check-ins kept the analysis aligned with GSU’s thinking.

5. Findings Presentation and Feedback Loop

• A structured walkthrough of the draft gave GSU leadership the chance to challenge assumptions and shape the final product before it was locked.

6. Final Report Issuance

• The final stream incorporated GSU’s feedback and delivered the completed accommodation study as a single decision-ready document.

Key Deliverables