(SAN FRANCISCO) Pacific Gas and Electric, PG&E, is selling its San Francisco headquarters to Hines Atlas US for a reported $800 million.
The deal, announced Monday, is pending approval from California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to return the gain from the sales to customers. Hines Atlas would take ownership of the PG&E complexes at 77 Beale St. and 245 Market St., according to KRON 4.
The utility company will move to an Oakland headquarters at 300 Lakeside Drive. The new headquarters will be ready for move-in by 2022 at a reportedly lower cost.
PG&E will push the CPUC to disperse over $300 million from the sale to its customers in an attempt to offset future rates.
In April of this year, a federal judge ruled that PG&E did not need to change its fire-prevention power-shutoff program in a way that would expand blackouts across the state. The judge cited state regulator opposition but he still recommended that the utility adopt the changes anyway.
Estimates of the changes predicted that the new policy would increase blackouts for PG&E customers by 29 percent in 2019 and 21 percent in 2020.
The utility company plans to consolidate two other East Bay locations in San Ramon and Concord into the new Oakland location. The new Oakland location will be at the 28-story Kaiser Center highrise near Lake Merritt.
This also comes after the utility pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter in 2020 for its role in the deadly and devasting Camp Fire. That Northern California fire was set off by the utility's failure to secure its power lines, resulting in the widespread destruction of the town of Paradise, a mountain town outside of Chico.